Sixteenth Century Journal

XXXVI/2 (2005)

Visualizing Devotion in Early ModernSeville: Velizquez's Christ in the House of

Martha and MaryTanyaj Tiffany

University of Wisconsin-Milvaukee

This essay offers a new reading of Diego Vel.izquez's Christ in the House of Martha andMary (1618) by relating it to religious discourse in the artist's native Seville.Throughan analysis of previously unstudied Sevillian writings, this article argues that the paint-ing's compositional structure entreats the beholder to use the corporeal register of theforeground as a means of entry into the spiritual register of the background scene.Aconsideration of contemporary discussions concerning the interrelation between theart of memory and devotion elucidates the function of Velizquez's picture-within-a-picture as a mnemonic device that reminds the viewer to heed his or her duties toChrist, even amid life's toils. Establishing the nexus between text and image, thesewritings are treated not simply as sources forVel.izquez's work, but as tools for recon-structing the religious milieu to which the artist contributed.

THE CHRIST IN THE HoUSE OF MARTHA AND MARY (1618) is among the most enig-matic of Diego Velizquez's Sevillian paintings (fig. 1). In the foreground, the artisthas represented a genre scene depicting two rustic women, apparently painted fromlife. The young woman labors with a mortar and pestle, her weary expression sug-gesting the tedium of her toil. On the table next to her appear fish, eggs, garlic, anda pepper, the makings of a simple Lenten meal.-Both figures' contemporary dressrelates them directly to the seventeenth-century beholder, an engagement rein-forced through the young woman's outward gaze. In the right-hand corner of thepainting,Velizquez has depicted Christ's visit to Martha and Mary within a framedscene. He has distinguished the biblical image from the somber kitchen in the fore-ground by rendering it with vivid tones, painterly brushstrokes, and a separateviewpoint.

The interpretation of the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary has longeluded scholars. Although its date of 1618 situates the painting within Velizquez'searly career in Seville, its provenance before the nineteenth century remains

433

Research for this article was supported by a Fulbright grant and a subvention from theProgram for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Education and Cultureand United States' Universities. An earlier version of this paper, entitled "El Cristo en casay Marta y Maria de Velizquez: Una nueva lectura," was presented at the SymposiumInternacionalVelizquez (Seville, 1999).

434 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

Figure 1. Diego Velizquez, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, 1618.

By permission of the National Gallery, London.

unknown.1 The work is not mentioned in the two principal sources onVelýzquez's

life and oeuvre, the Arte de la Pintura (1649) by the artist's master, Francisco

Pacheco, and the Museo Pictdrico (1715-24) by the artist and theorist Antonio Palo-

mino.2 In the painting itself, VelUzquez's equivocal depiction of space provides few

clues regarding the relationship between the secular foreground and the sacred epi-

sode in the background.Art historians have therefore continually debated the iden-

tity of the foreground figures and their connection to the bibhcal personages.They

have similarly disputed the nature of the framed religious scene, which has been

identified alternatively as a painting, a window, or a nmirror reflection.

1The date was revealed when the painting was cleaned in 1964. See Neil MacLaren, The Spanish

School, 2nd ed., revised by Allan Braham (London: National Gallery, 1970), 121. Jonathan Brown and

Richard L. Kagan,"The Duke ofAlcali: His Collection and Its Evolution,"Art Bulletin 69, no.2

(1987):

238, discuss a "lienco Pequefio de un [sic] coýina donde esta majando unos ajos una muger" by

Velizquez, listed in Alcala's 1632-36 inventory (ibid., 248-55).As they argue, the painting was probably

not the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, for no religious scene was mentioned.J. Miguel Mor.in

and Fernando Checa, El coleccionisino en EspaFa, Ensayos Arte Citedra (Madrid: Citedra, 1985), 302,

note that a 1692 inventory from Madrid alludes to a bodeg6n representing Christ with Martha and Mary

by the hand of a certain "Vquez," whom they consider to be Diego Vel.izquez. Having consulted the

original document (Madrid, Archivo Hist6rico de Protocolos, protocolo 9887, afio 1692), I agree with

Enriqueta Harris, who argues that the abbreviation "V.quez" probably refers to an artist namedV izquez,

such as AlonsoV•izquez. See Enriqueta Harris, exh. review of Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, Kimbell

Art Museum, Fort Worth, Burlington Magazine 127, no. 990 (1985): 644. The inventory explicitly men-tions a portrait by "Velizquez" on, for example, fol. 5

37v.

2Francisco Pacheco, Arte de la Pintura (1649), ed. Bonaventura Bassegoda i Hugas (Madrid: Cite-

dra, 1990); Antonio Palomino, El Museo Pictdrico y escala dptica (1715-24), prologue by Juan A. Cein

Berm6dez (Madrid: Aguilar, 1947). The third volume of Palomino's treatise-biographies of artists-

was published as Antonio Palomino, Vidas, ed. Nina Ayala Mallory, Alianza Forma (Madrid: Alianza,

1986).

Tiffany / Veltizquezs "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 435

The Christ in the House of Martha and Mary has yet to be fully examined withinits religious framework. Scholars have long discussed the image in terms of theactive life of Martha and the contemplative life of Mary, but have not focusedequally on the painting's relation to interpretations of the biblical story andreligious practice in Seville. John Moffitt and others have noted the similaritybetween Velizquez's use of the picture-within-a-picture and the compositionalschemes in the illustrations to the Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia (1595) bythe Spanish Jesuit Jer6nimo Nadal. 3Yet art historians have not extensively exploredthe ways in whichVelizquez adapted his visual and textual sources toward his ownpictorial aims.

This essay offers a new reading of the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary byrelating it to contemporary Sevillian exegesis and devotion. This interpretationentails a close analysis of writings byVel5zquez's master, Pacheco, and members ofhis Sevillian circle.Velizquez formed part of Pacheco's studio and household from1610 until 1617 and married his master's daughter in 1618, the year he painted theChrist in the House of Martha and Mary.4 Groundbreaking work by Jonathan Brownand others has highlighted the central role played by Pacheco in Seville's eruditecircles, and a glance at the references to local theologians, poets, and painters in theArte de la Pintura suggests the vibrant exchange of ideas that occurred amongSevillian artists and men of letters. 5 Although scholars have acknowledged thatVelizquez's training in this milieu provided him with a strong intellectualfoundation, the extent of his participation in Sevillian artistic and religiousdiscourse remains to be understood. 6

Through an analysis of previously unstudied writings by members of Pacheco'scircle, this article will argue that the compositional structure of the Christ in theHouse of Martha and Mary entreats the beholder to use the corporeal register of theforeground as a means of entry into the spiritual register of the background scene.A consideration of contemporary discussions concerning the interrelation betweenthe art of memory and devotion elucidates the function of Velizquez's picture-within-a-picture as a mnemonic device that reminds the viewer to heed his or her

3jer6ninio Nadal,Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia quae in sacrosancto Missae sacrfiicio toto anno

leguntur (Antwerp: Martinus Nutios, 1595). See also John E Moffitt, "Francisco Pacheco and JeromeNadal: New Light on the Flemish Sources of the Spanish 'Picture-within-the-Picture,'"Art Bulletin 72,no. 4 (1990): 631-38;Thomas L. Glen, "Velizquez's Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha andMary: An Image Both 'Reflected' and to Be Reflected Upon," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 136, no. 1578/79(2000): 21-30, esp. 27.

4Velaizquez's apprenticeship contract states that he entered Pacheco's studio in December 1610,but the contract was only signed in September 1611. For the contract, see Corpus velazqietio: Documentosy textos (Madrid: Ministerio de Educaci6n, Cultura y Deporte, Direcci6n General de Bellas Artes yBienes Culturales, 2000), 1:28-29.

5See Jonathan Brown,"Theory and Art in the Academy of Francisco Pacheco," in hnages and Ideasin Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 21-83. See alsoBassegoda i Hugas, introduction to Arte, by Pacheco, esp. 20-32.6

Velizquez's role in this Sevillian milieu is the subject ofTanya J.Tiffany,"InterpretingVelizquez:Artistic Innovation and Painted Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Seville" (Ph.D. dissertation, JohnsHopkins University, 2003), and of the book I am writing onVelizquez's Sevillian works.

436 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXVI/2 (2005)

duties to Christ, even amid life's toils. Establishing the nexus between text and

image, these writings will be treated not simply as sources forVelizquez's work, but

as tools for reconstructing the Sevillian religious discourse to which he gave visual

form.

VELAZQUEZ'S CHRIST IN THE HousE OF MARTHA AND M4RY:

FIGURING ACTION AND CONTEMPLATION

As scholars have long recognized,Vel;izquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

reflects his engagement with "inverted" religious compositions popularized by six-

teenth-century Netherlandish painters. Pieter Aertsen, his student Joachim Beuck-

elaer, and other northern artists often placed contemporary images, replete with

still-life elements, in the foregrounds of their paintings, while relegating the reli-

gious scenes to small spaces viewed through portals in the backgrounds. These

images, such as Aertsen's Supper at Einmnaus, would have been familiar to Velizquez

through the popular prints by Jacob Matham. 7 Aertsen himself painted three ver-

sions of the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary; in one of these, the foreground

displays copious still-life elements and contemporary and religious figures, while a

columned gateway in the background reveals the Gospel scene (1553; fig. 2).8

Scholars have shown that the biblical episode in the background of Velizquez's

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary depicts a passage from the Gospel of Luke,

in which Christ stops to rest at the house of Lazarus's two sisters (Luke 10: 38-42).9

During Christ's stay, Martha assiduously prepares his meal, while Mary listens

enraptured to his ministry. Irritated by her sister's apparent idleness, Martha begs

Christ to admonish Mary to help with the housework. Christ responds that Martha

has misunderstood her sister's conduct: "Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art

troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best

part, which shall not be taken away from her."10 Mary's contemplation of his

preaching, he explains, is superior to Martha's attendance to his corporeal needs.

"7August L. Mayer, "Velizquez und die Niederlandischen Ki6chenstuicke," Kunstchronik und Kunst-

markt 30 (3 January 1919): 236-37, first related Velizquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and

Supper at Emimnaus (ca. 1617, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland) to Netherlandish precedents. See also

Jonathan Brown, Veldzquez: Painter and Courtier (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1986), 16--21; OdileDelenda, Veltizquez: Peintre religieux, introduction by Jeannine Baticle (Geneva: Cerf/Tricorne, 1993),

28-31; David Davies and Enriqueta Harris, cat. no. 21 in Vel zquez in Seville, ed. Michael Clarke, exh.

cat., National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1996, 132. Matham's Supper at Ennnaus is reproduced in

Walter L. Strauss, .Netherlandish Artists: Mathamn, Saenredain, Muller, The Illustrated Bartsch (New York:Abaris Books, 1980), 4:150 (formerly vol. 3, pt. 2).

80n foreground and background in this work, see esp. M. A. Meadow, "Aertsen's Christ in the

House of Martha and Mary, Serlio's Architecture and the Meaning of Location," in Rhetoric-Rh6toriqueurs-

Rederykers: Proceedings of tie Colloquium, Ansterdamn, 10-13 November 1993, ed. Jelle Koopinans et al.

(Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1995), 175-96. On Sevillian artists' imitation of these works, see Peter

Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza: El Bodeq6n Espahol en el Siglo de Oro, trans. Ivars Barzdevics (Madrid: DoceCalles, 1999), 121-25.

9See, for example, Brown, Velhzquez, 16; Delenda, Veldzquez, 27-28; Davies and Harris, cat. no.

21 in Velizquez ill Seville, 132.10Luke 10:41-42 (DouayVersion).

Tiffany / VelWzquez`s "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 437

Figure 2. Pieter Aertsen, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, 1553. By permission of theMuseum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists emphasized the traditionalassociation of Martha and Mary with the active and contemplative lives. InAertsen's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary in Rotterdam, as in other northerndepictions of the theme, the artist compares the active and contemplative lives ofthe respective sisters by representing Mary at Christ's feet, heeding his ministry,while Martha stands above the Lord, reprimanding her sister.11 Aertsen furtherfigures the active life in the foreground by crowding the kitchen scene with bothbiblical and contemporary personages, who are surrounded by an array of fruits,game, and other foods.

In his Christ in the House of Martha and Mary,Velizquez similarly distinguishesbetween the action and contemplation of the two sisters. His background imagedepicts Mary seated, her head raised toward Christ in captivated attention.12

Velizquez has followed the tradition of conflating Mary with the Magdalen by rep-resenting her with flowing blond hair. Martha, in turn, stands behind her sister andholds out her hand in supplication to the Lord. To the left, Christ gazes at Marthaand silences her with his hand gesture, illustrating the final moment of the biblicalepisode. Because Velizquez, in this background scene, has followed Netherlandishmodels in depicting Christ's privileging of Mary's attentiveness over Martha's labor,

1'See esp. Meadow, "Aertsen's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary," 175-95.12As argued in Leo Steinberg, review of Velhzquez:A Catalogue Raisonne of His Oeuvre, with an

Introductory Study by Jos6 L6pez-Rey, Art Bulletin 47, no. 2 (1965): 289, Mary's pose is modeled on thefigure in Dbrer's Melancholia I.

438 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

the entire painting has been interpreted as a valorization of Mary's contemplationat the expense of Martha's action. 13

A careful analysis of Vel;izquez's composition and style nonetheless demands amore complex reading. In the Christ in the House of Martha and MaryVelizquez hasliterally foregrounded the kitchen scene, emphasizing the domain of the active lifeby placing it almost within the viewer's space. While northern paintings such asAertsen's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary call the viewer's attention awayfrom the background by depicting a profusion of still-life elements,Velizquez hasaccomplished this with only a few objects and two figures, rendered with strikingrealism. He has lavished his technical virtuosity on the still-life elements, using adark palette and heavily laden brushstrokes that impart an almost material qualityto the objects. Thick layers of gray paint dabbed with touches of white read asshiny, scaly fish, while impasted strokes of ocher create the illusion of a mattesurface on the lower half of the jug. This materiality stands in stark contrast to thebackground scene, in which the biblical figures are rendered with loose, painterlystrokes and strident colors. 14YetVelizquez has also encouraged the viewer to relatethe ostensibly secular kitchen scene to the religious episode by placing the fish, afamiliar symbol of Christ, directly beneath the figure of the Lord. 15

Although Velýzquez's foreground figures do not depict Martha and Mary, as issometimes argued, they emphasize the type of work epitomized by Martha. 1 6 Theyoung woman toiling with the mortar and pestle is the most prominent figure inthe painting, and her activity is emphasized through the old woman's pointing ges-ture.17Velizquez has further related the contemporary and biblical scenes by creat-ing visual analogues between the foreground and background figures. The oldwoman's white veil and her young companion's ocher doublet find echoes in Mar-tha's white headdress and brown tunic. Similarly, the bent arms and raised hands of

U3

See Brown, Vel,zquez, 21; Delenda, Vel6zquez, 28; Manuela B. Mena Marqu6s, cat. no. 83 inVehizquez y Sevilla, Catuilogo, ed. Alfredo J. Morales, exh. cat., Santa Maria de las Cuevas, Salas delCentro Andaluz de Arte Contemporineo, Seville, 1999, 180. On similar interpretive problemsregarding Aertsen's "inverted" versions of the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, see Meadow,"Aertsen's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary," 175-96; Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza,121-24.

14Norman Bryson, Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1990), 155, stresses the difference between the "loose, free brushstrokes" ofthe biblical scene and the "solid, tangible matter" depicted in the foreground of Velizquez's Supper atEmmnaus. In works such as the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary in Rotterdam, Aertsen used colorto distinguish between the foreground and background scenes. OnVelizquez's appropriation of the sty-listic qualities of northern "inverted" paintings, see Cherry, Arte y naturaleza, 122.

15John F Moffitt, "'Terebat in mortario': Symbolism in Velasquez's Christ in the House of Martha

and Mary,"Arte cristiana 72, no. 700 (1984): 16, notes that the fish represent Christ.16

For atterpts to equate one or both of the foreground women with the biblical personages, see,

for example, Moffitt, "Francisco Pacheco," 634;Julifn Gfillego, Velhzquez en Sevilla, 2nd ed. (Seville:Excma. Diputaci6n Provincial, 1994), 136. Marta Cacho Casal,"The Old Woman in Vel.izquez's KitchenScene with C/rist's Visit to Marlha and Mary,"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 63 (2000): 295-302, argues that the old woman is Martha's maid.17

0n the old woman's emphatic gesture, see MacLaren, Spanish School, 122; Leslie Anne Nelson,"Velizquez's 'Bodegones a lo divino' and the Spanish Theatre of the Golden Age" (Ph.D. dissertation,Bryn Mawr College, 1996), 96.

Tiffany / VelMzquez's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 439

both foreground figures mirror Martha's gesture of complaint.18 By establishing

these visual parallels,Velizquez has entreated the viewer to consider the correlationbetween the contemporary and biblical personages, connecting foreground andbackground, quotidian present and biblical history. Only a careful examination ofthe work reveals thatVelizquez has differentiated the two sets of figures and estab-lished a deliberately equivocal relationship between the foreground and back-ground scenes.

THE PLACE OF MARTHA IN SEVILLE

Velizquez's emphasis on the act of cooking provides a pictorial counterpart to exe-getical praise of Martha, who was extolled for her place as the Lord's servant. InSeville, the importance of Martha's attendance to Christ was reflected in the activ-ities of the Hospital de Santa Marta, the principal function of which was feeding

the poor. Founded in the fourteenth century and administered by the cathedral,the hospital was considered sufficiently important to survive the massive reduction

of hospitals in the city in the late sixteenth century.19 In the years around 1618,when Velizquez painted the Christ in the House of iartha and Mary, the Hospital deSanta Marta paid two women to feed impoverished men, mostly retired and ailingclerics, who came daily to receive a ration. 20 The hospital's inventories have notbeen discovered, making it impossible to ascertain whether Velizquez's paintingmay have been directly linked to the institution.This emphasis on Martha as a saintpraised for her hospitality toward Christ nonetheless helps to establish the Sevilliancontext of Velizquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, which emphasizes thetoils of the kitchen.

A sermon by the Augustinian friar Pedro deValderrama (1550-1611) glorifiesboth Martha and Mary, thus elucidating the symbolic importance of both sisters in

Velizquez's milieu.Valderrama is especially significant for this discussion because hewas one of Seville's most renowned preachers and formed an integral part ofPacheco's intellectual circle, as explained by the artist himself in the Libro de Retratos(Book of portraits), the most important source on the Augustinian's life. 2 1 In a

18Victor I. Stoichita, 7"he Self-Aware Image:An Insight into Early Modern Meta-Painting, trans. Anne-Marie Glasheen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 10-16, suggests that the figures' ges-cures help to bind foreground and background.

190n the hospital, see Francisco Collantes de Terin y Delorme, Los establecinientos de caridad de

Sevilla (1884 and 1886; repr. of both eds., Seville: Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos T&-nicos, 1980), 197-236 in repr. of 1886 ed.;Juan Ignacio Carmona Garcia, El sistenla de hospitalidadp iblica en la Sevilla del Antiguo R4ginien (Seville: Excma. Diputaci6n Provincial, 1979), passim.

20See the hospital's expenditure records from 1617 until 1619 in Archivo de ]a Catedral de Sevilla,

secci6n V, libros 138-40. The hospital displayed at least one work of art, as described in a late seven-teenth-century text:Joseph Arias de S. Pedro, "Pintura, de un caso Memorable, Que esti en el Arquillode S. Marta,' in Los establecitnientos de caridad, 218-20.

21 Francisco Pacheco, Libro de descripci6n de verdaderos retratos de ilustres y tnernorables varones, ed. PedroM. Pifiero Ramirez and Rogelio Keyes Cano (Seville: Excma. Diputaci6n Provincial, 1985), 111-14.Pacheco's treatise is undated and remained unpublished until the nineteenth century; ibid., 15-49. Theother important source onValderrama is Francisco de Luque Faxardo, Razonainiento Grave y Devoto, Quehizo el Padre M. F Pedro de Valderrania...: Con mas un breve Elogio de su vida y predicacion (Seville: Luis

440 Sixteenth Century journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

sermon dedicated to Saint Bruno, Valderrama uses the story of Martha and Maryto demonstrate that Bruno and the Carthusian order he founded embody the per-fect union of action and contemplation. 22 Praising the saint's dedication to helpingthe poor,Valderrama compares the Carthusians' activities to Martha's hospitality toChrist, reflecting the post-Tridentine emphasis on the importance of goodworks. 23 "Let the life of Martha shine," he exclaims, while extolling the order'scommitment to the "charity with which they house such a multitude of guests."24

Although others ignore Martha's "good example," Bruno's order carries on her tra-dition by attending to those in need.25 Of course,Valderrama explains that Brunoand the Carthusians exemplify not only the "active life," but also the "contempla-tive life" as demonstrated through their practice of cloistered meditation. 26 Valder-rama lauds the order for upholding the founder's mission by continually joining thetwo lives: "Mary's life, which is to sit at Christ's feet, and Martha's life, which is tobe anxious and concerned about the sustenance and alms of the poor. And thatboth these lives shine eminently in this holy Religion, one sees very clearly....'27

Valderrama then declares that God rewards the Carthusians for uniting action andcontemplation and exhorts his readers to follow their lofty example.

The religious significance of Velizquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Maryis further illuminated by a little-known Tratado de las tres vidas, activa, contemplativa yinixta (Treatise on the three lives, active, contemplative, and mixed), whichcharacterizes Martha's labor as a means of approaching Mary's contemplation. 28

Estupifian, 1612). See also Andr&s Soria, "La predicaci6n de Pedro de Valderrania," Revista de literatura46, no. 92 (1984): 19-55; Hilary Dansey Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age:A Study of SoniePreachers of the Reign of Philip III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), esp. 56-58, 65-66, 132-34.

22Pedro deValderrama, Sernuin en la Fiesta delglorioso Patriarca san Bruno: Fundador de la Orden de la

Cartuja, in Teatro de las Religiones (Seville: Convento de San Agustin, 1612), 524-46.Valderrama explic-itly refers to Bruno as "san Bruno," although he was never officially canonized. Bruno's cult was sanc-tioned for the Carthusians in 1514 and for the church as a whole in 1623.

23Manuel PNrez Lozano, "Fuentes y significado del cuadro 'Cristo en casa de Marta' de DiegoVelizquez," Cuadernos deArte e Iconografia 3 (1990): 55-64; idem,"Velizquez, en el entorno de Pacheco:Las primeras obras' Ars Longa 2 (1991): 89-102, esp. 95-100, also argues that Vehlzquez's Christ in theHouse of Martha and Mary emphasizes both the active and contemplative lives. Glen, "Velizquez's KitchenScene," 21-30, further discusses the painting in terms of the importance of the active life and good worksas promoted in Seville. According to Xanthe Brooke and Peter Cherry, Murillo: Scenes of Childhood, exh.cat., Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2001), 80, a lecture presented in 1999 by Terence O'Reillysimilarly related Velizquez's painting to Jesuit texts on the union of mundane labor and religiouscontemplation.

24Valderrama, Sermdn, 545: "Pues que resplandezca ... la vida de Marta"; "caridad con que

ospeda[n] tanta multicud de guespedes."Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. Spanish quo-nations are faithful to the orthography used in the works cited.

25Valderrama, Sertn6n, 546: "buen exemplo."26

Valderrama, Sernnin, 544: "vida activa'; "vida contemplativa."27

Valderrama, Sertndn, 544.The passage reads: "Y bien se echa de ver en lo que dex6 en su sagradaReligio[n], en Ia qual se guardan estas dos vidas con suma puntualidad: la vida de Maria, que es estarsentada a los pies de Christo, y la vida de Marta, que es andar solicita y cuydosa del sustento y limosnadel pobre.Y que estas dos vidas resplandezcan con eminencia en esta sagrada Religion, vese muy clara-trente....'

28Antonio Cordeses, Tratado de las tres vidas, activa, conteniplativa y inixta, in Obras espirimales: GUiate6rico-prictica de la perfeccidn cristiana, ed. with a prologue by A.Yanguas (Madrid: Consejo Superior de

Tiffany / Veljzquezs "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 441

The treatise was written by the Jesuit Antonio Cordeses (1518-1601), who duringthe last ten years of his life served as provost in Seville's Casa Profesa, where hedoubtless became acquainted with Pacheco's friends in the Society of Jesus. 29 Inthe Tratado, Cordeses uses the ascent from the active life of Martha to thecontemplative life of Mary as a metaphor for Saint Ignatius's concept of the soul'sjourney toward union with God. Cordeses explains that the active life, linked tothe sensory world of "extrinsic material," is the lowest of the three lives discussedin the tract. 30 Yet "the active life, if exercised with perfection, is of great excellence,and thus it was represented in Scripture by the holy woman Martha, who hostedChrist."3 1 The active life, occupied with good works pertaining to the materialworld, is therefore important and "is necessary for the provision and preparation forthe contemplative life."32 Indeed, there is a direct relationship between the toil ofthe active life and the success achieved in the contemplative life, for "the more aman has walked in Martha's life, the more he will be prepared for Mary's path;because of this the saints have said that the active life must precede thecontemplative."

33

With regard to Velizquez's painting, it is significant that Cordeses favors thevida inixta, combining action and contemplation, over the purely contemplativelife. The vida mixta is "very noble" (nobilissima) and serves as the culmination ofCordeses's tract, encompassing the perfections of both Martha and Mary. Inkeeping with the Jesuit missionary vocation, Cordeses argues that the vida inixta isnecessary to all those who wish to imitate the apostles in spreading the word ofGod. Not surprisingly, Cordeses argues that whoever aspires to the vida inixta needalways remember that the contemplative life is the superior aspect of this combinedway of living, for it is described by Christ as the "best part."34Yet he who seeks the

Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto "Francisco Suirez," 1953), 1-43. The two manuscript versions ofthe treatise are London, Brit. Mus. Add. MS 20915, fols. 206-15; BCC (Biblioteca Capitular y Colom-bina, Seville) MS 84-2-8, fols. 1-50.The manuscripts are written in distinct hands and their texts differ.For this article, I have usedYanguas's edition, which is a publication of the London manuscript. On theTratado and its date (before 1573), seeYanguas, prologue to Cordeses, Tratado, v-xxxvi. See also PaulDudon, "Les id&es du P. Antonio Cordeses sur l'Oraison, I," Revue d'asc&ique et de inystique 12 (1931):97-115; idem, "Les id6es du P Antonio Cordeses sur l'Oraison, II," Revue d'ascetique et de mystique 13(1932): 17-33. Delenda, Velhzquez, 28, mentions the Tratado in the context ofVelizquez's Christ in theHouse of Martha and M,1ary, but does not develop her argument.29

0n Pacheco's connections to the Jesuits, see Alfonso Rodriguez G. de Ceballos, introduction tohndgenes de to historia evatnqglica, by Jer6nimo Nadal (Barcelona: Ediciones El Albir, 1975), 7-15; Bona-ventura Bassegoda i Hugas, "Observaciones sobre El Arte de la Pintura de Francisco Pacheco como tratadode Iconografia," Cuadernos deArtee Iconografia 3 (1989):185-96, esp. 191-94.3 0

Cordeses, Tratado, 3:"materia extrinseca."31Cordeses, Tratado, 7: "La vida activa, si es exercitada con perfecci6n, es de grande excellentia, y

assi fue figurada en la Scriptura por la santa niujer Martha, que hosped6 a Cristo."3 2Cordeses, Tratado, 13: "es necessaria para dispositi6n y aparejo de la vida contemplativa." Cor-

deses cites Gregory the Great as an authority on using the active life to lead to the contemplative life.3 3Cordeses, Tratado, 31: "tanto estari el hombre mias aparexado para la via de Maria, quanto mis

carnino huviere andado en la vida de Martha, ca por esto han dicho los Santos que la vida activa ha depreceder a la contemplativa."

34Cordeses, Tratado, 37, 38, 41.

442 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

vida mixta must always adhere to his duties pertaining to the active life, "without

abandoning ... the obligation of his status or institution ... and without notablyneglecting charity to others." 35

Both Valderrama's glorification of Martha's role as Christ's servant and

Cordeses's notion of using the active life in order to achieve the contemplative life

help to elucidate the exegetical context of Velizquez's Christ in the House of Martha

and Mary. Like Valderrama,Velizquez valorizes the active life through the

prominent kitchen scene in the foreground. With the illustration of the biblical

episode in which Christ assures Martha that Mary "hath chosen the best part," the

artist nonetheless suggests that the active life is only one aspect of the ideal

Christian. The presence of the Lenten still life in the foreground scene also

emphasizes the need to join the sacred and the secular by reminding the viewer to

honor Christ by heeding the spiritual life even while nourishing the body.36 In the

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary,Velizquez has furthermore thematized

Cordeses's exhortation to use Martha's life as a stage in the pursuit of Mary's. He

has made the religious scene accessible only by means of the image of the active lifein the foreground, entreating the viewer to take in the contemporary scene and its

still-life elements before reaching the small biblical episode in the right-hand

corner. When considered in concert with Cordeses's text, this compositionalstructure seems to suggest that the toils of the melancholy cook in the painting's

foreground will lead to a higher spiritual reward.

THE CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF MARTHA AND MARY AND THE ART OF MEMORY

The vividness of Velizquez's framed religious scene and its function as a reminder

to join action and contemplation relate to contemporary mnemonic techniques,

which encouraged practitioners to remember concepts and objects by placing

striking mental images in the settings of places such as streets, buildings, or individ-

ual rooms. Using this art of memory to create mental pictures was central to Cath-

olic devotional methods. For example, in Saint Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises (1548),the composition of place involves employing the memory (which is equated with

the imagination) to conjure up vivid images of our past sins and the example of

Christ's life. This technique was based on the mnemonics outlined in classical rhe-

torical manuals such as the anonymous Ad Herenniuin, which advocated memoriz-ing series of objects through the formation and arrangement of striking mental

35Cordeses, Tratado, 38:"sin derogar ... a la obhigaci6n de su estado o instituto ... y sin faltar nota-

blemente a la charidad del pr6ximo."36

Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza, 123, has stated that the meal being prepared is "una comida de absti-

nencia, adecuada para la escena religiosa." Martin Soria used a passage from the writings of St.Teresa to

elucidate the ways in which Velizquez's painting emphasizes the close relationship between the mun-

dane and the spiritual:"Cuando ... empleadas en cosas exteriores, entended, que si es en la cocina entre

los pucheros anda el Seiior, ayudindoos en lo interior y exterior." Teresa ofAvila, Libro de Fundaciones,chap. 5, v. 7; quoted (without further reference) in Martin S. Soria, "An Unknown Early Painting by

Velizquez," Burlington Magazine 91, no. 554 (1949): 127.

Tiffany / VelMzquez's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 443

pictures. 37 In part because of its relevance to devotion, the Ad Herennium waswidely read in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and became one of the prin-cipal rhetorical manuals used in Jesuit schools. 38

The importance of these mnemonic techniques in Velizquez's circle is sug-gested through an analysis of the "Tratado de la memoria artificiosa" (Treatise onartificial memory), a manuscript in Seville that, to my knowledge, has never beendiscussed by scholars. 39 The "Tratado" is an abbreviated translation of the discus-sion of memory in the Ad Herennium, reflecting contemporaries' particular interestin that section of the text. As indicated in the manuscript, the treatise was translatedby Juan Bautista SuArez de Salazar (d. 1644), a cathedral canon of the Andalusiancity of Cadiz, who had close connections to the Jesuits and maintained a friendshipand correspondence with Velizquez's early patron, the Sevillian Juan de Fonseca yFigueroa. 40 The "Tratado" is thus particularly relevant to our discussion ofVelizquez's painting, and Suirez de Salazar's translation may reflect the ways inwhich the young artist's associates understood the classical text.

Without suggesting thatVelizquez used the "Tratado" as a direct source, Iwould like to examine how the text sheds light on his engagement with the art ofmemory. The "Tratado" advocates creating mental arrangements of "places" and"images," and in so doing keys into the mnemonic role of pictures-within-

37For a general discussion of the Ad Herennium (ca. 86-82 BcE), see Henry Caplan, introduction

to Ad Herennium, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), vii-xl.Thesection on memory appears in Ad Herennium 3.16.28-24.40. On the memory section and its subsequentinfluence, see Frances A.Yates, The Art ofAilemory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), esp. 1-26, 86-91; Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1990), 122-55 and passim; idem, The Craft of Thought: Aeditation, Rhetoric,and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. 9-10, 36-37,81, 99, 236-37; Lina Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory: Literary and Iconqoraphic Models in the Age of thePrinting Press, trans.Jeremy Parzen (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 2001), passim.

3 8On the importance of the Ad Herennium for Ignatius and other Spanish Jesuits, see Fernando R.

de la Flor, Teatro de la memoria: Siete ensayos sobre mnemotecnia espahola de los siglos XVII y XV/711, 2nd ed.(Salamanca:Junta de Castilla y Le6n, 1996), 83-85,120-22;Jos6 Rico Verd6, La ret6rica espanola de lossiglos XVI y XVII (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1973), 59-60. For concisediscussions ofJesuit education, see John O'Malley, "The Schools," chap. 6 in The First Jesuits (Cam-bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 200-242; Francesco C. Cesareo, "The Collegium Ger-manicum and the Ignatian Vision of Education," Sixteenth Century journal 24 (1993): 829-41.

39juan Bautista Suirez de Salazar,"Tratado de la memoria artificiosa," BCC MS 57-3-24 (sig. anti-gua 83-3-19), fols. 363r-66r. The treatise is undated. Nicolis Maria Cambiaso yVerdes, Memorias parala biografia y para la bibliqirafla de a isla de Cddiz, rev. ed., ed. Ram6n Corzo Sinchez and Margarita Tos-cana San Gil (Cadiz: Caja de Ahorros, 1986), 194, lists the "Tratado" in an inventory of Suirez deSalazar's works, but does not discuss the treatise or its contents.

40Suirez de Salazars testament reveals that upon his death he bequeathed all, or most of, his per-

sonal library to Cadiz's Jesuit school. See Cambiaso yVerdes, Menjorias, 193; Pablo Ant6n Sol&,"Biblio-tecas y bibli6filos gaditanos," Archivo Hispalense 57, no. 176 (1974): 46-47. Suirez de Salazar's best-known work is the Grandezas y antigiiedades de la isla y ciudad de Ctdiz (Cadiz: Clemente Hidalgo, 1610).Fragments of the correspondence between Suirez de Salazar and Fonseca y Figueroa survive in themanuscript volume that contains the "Tratado." On Fonseca y Figueroa's relationship toVelizquez, seeJose L6pez Navio, "Velizquez tasa los cuadros de su protector D. Juan de Fonseca," Archivo Espanol deArte 34 (1961): 53-84.

444 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

pictures. 4 1 The places are the backgrounds against which the images to be recalled

are stored; they are "like the paper" used for writing, while "the images" functionlike "the letters" that fill the page. 42 In contrast to the Latin text of the AdHerennium, the "Tratado" stresses the importance of populating these pictures with

familiar faces that "we could easily remember." 43 Elaborating on the classicalauthor's precepts, Sufirez de Salazar uses common names as a mechanism for

remembering a murder by poison. He thus exhorts the reader to imagine that"Pedro would say that Francisco was killed with poison by Antonio, who did it in

order to win his inheritance.' 44 Although Suirez de Salazar follows the Latin textin stating that the images should not represent ordinary events (for they are more

difficult to recall), by giving each of the personages a familiar name he emphasizesthe relative facility of remembering subjects related to people we see every day.

In the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary;Velizquez has created a kitchen

scene that functions as a place for a memory image. 45 The framed biblical episodelocated within that place thus becomes an image the viewer is exhorted to rernem-

ber.Velizquez's depiction of ordinary, humble models in the foreground providesan analogue to Suirez de Salazar's recommendation to use people we know to aid

the memory, and both figures seem to be individuals-like Pedro, Francisco, orAntonio-whom we could encounter in seventeenth-century Seville. In fact, theelderly woman surely was a contemporary Sevillian, for she also served as the

model forVelizquez's Old Wornan Cooking.46 In the Christ in the House of Martha andMary, Velizquez's representation of a common kitchen scene departs from the trea-

tise's admonition to avoid picturing everyday occurrences, but the image locatedwithin that place corresponds to the text by inciting the beholder to remember the

extraordinary event of Christ's visit to Martha and Mary. By constructing the Christin the House of Martha and Mary as a memory picture,Velizquez has beautifully illus-

trated the significance of the passage from the Gospel of Luke, in which Christ'steachings miraculously transfix Mary, even within the ordinary surroundings of the

sisters' household.

41Suirez de Salazar, "Tratado," fol. 363v: "Consta pues la memoria artificiosa de lugares y de

imagines?"42

Suirez de Salazar, "Tratado," fol. 363v: "los lugares son semejantes al papel, las imagines a lasletras, y la disposicion y aciento de las imagines al discurso de la escriptura...."

43Suirez de Salazar, "Tratado," fol. 364v. The author exhorts the reader to imagine "una persona

de la qual facilm[en]te nos podriamos acordar."44Suirez de Salazar, "Tratado," fol. 364v. Suirez de Salazar encourages the reader to conjure up

"unas imagines del mismo negocio como si Pfedr]o dijere q[ue] Fran[cis]co fue muerto con veneno deAnt[oni]o que lo hiso por eredalle."

45Nelson, "Velizquez's 'Bodegones a lo divino," esp. 106-26, associates Velizquez's use of pic-

tures-within-pictures with mnemonics and emphasizes the interconnectedness of the art of memory

and Jesuit devotion. My description of the painting as a memory image depends on Nelson's work.46

01d Woman Cooking (1618, National Gallery of Scotland).Velizquez's use of the same model forthe Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and the Old Woman Cooking has been noted, for example, byBrown, Velizquez, 17. OnVelizquez's practice of working from life, see Pacheco,Arte, 443.

Tiffany / Veldzq,uez's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 445

MEMORY AND DEVOTION

The use of vivid images as mnemonics to devotion is exemplified in the

Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia (Annotations and meditations on the

Gospels; 1595) by the Jesuit Jer6nimo Nadal, a work that provided an important

model for Velizquez's representation of a biblical scene as a memory painting.47

Published at Ignatius's request, the Adnotationes et meditationes gives pictorial form

to his imagined composition of place.The treatise combines Nadal's text and lavish

Flemish engravings, which were executed mainly by the Wierix shop in Antwerp

after designs by Bernardo Passeri. Using pictures-within-pictures to represent

various moments in each of the Gospel episodes depicted, the engravings function

in concert with the text to aid the reader in meditation. For example, the Magdalen

Anoints Christ's Feet (fig. 3) comprises a large foreground scene that depicts the

Magdalen washing and anointing Christ's feet at the Pharisee's feast, while the

background contains related episodes, and a framed roundel illustrates the parable

of the two debtors, which Christ explains to the figures in the foreground scene.

At the bottom of the page, letters corresponding to each episode are followed by

inscriptions that succinctly describe the events depicted and guide the beholder's

study of the image.The Adnotationes et meditationes provides a compelling devotional model for

Velizquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. As scholarship has shown, the

engravings were appropriated by artists throughout Catholic Europe as ideal and

decorous sources for religious paintings.48 Pacheco continually cites Nadal in the

Arte de la Pintura, and explicitly recommends the engravings as pictorial sources for

sacred images including the Visitation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Magi. 49 John

Moffitt has demonstrated that the compositional technique of the picture-within-

a-picture used in many of the images also provided a source for Pacheco's Saint

Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene (1616; fig. 4), painted two years before Velizquez's

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.50

A careful examination of Pacheco's Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene in

conjunction withVelizquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary reveals the dif-

ferent ways in which master and former pupil engaged with the engravings of the47

As translated in Jer6nimo Nadal, Annotations and Xleditations on the Gospels, vol. 1, The Infancy

Narratives, trans. Frederick A. Homann, with an introduction by Walter S. Melion (Philadelphia: Saint

Joseph's University Press, 2003).48

In addition to the works on Nadal cited elsewhere in this article, see in particular: Thomas

Buser,"Jerome Nadal and Early jesuitArt in Rome,"Art Bulletin 58, no. 3 (1976): 424-33; David Freed-

berg,"A Source for Rubens's Modello of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin:A Case Study in the

Response to Images," Burlington Ma.azine 120, no. 904 (1978): 432-41; idem, The Power of Images: Stud-

ies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 181-83; Marc

Fumaroli, L'dge de lYloquence: RhUtorique et "res literaria" de la Renaissance an seuil de lPpoque classique

(Geneva: Droz, 1980), 258-60;Walter S. Melion, "Pictorial Artifice and Catholic Devotion in Abraham

Bloemaert's Virgin of Sorrows with the Holy Face ofc. 1615," in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Represen-

tation: Papers from a Colloquiumn Held at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome and the Villa Spelnian, Florence,

1996, ed. Herbert L. Kessler and Gerhard Wolf (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1998), esp. 333-40.4 9

0n these three subjects, see Pacheco, Arte, 596-99,602-8, 612-17, respectively.5 0

Moffitt, "Francisco Pacheco," 631-38.

446 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

FERI-A V. POST. DOM. PASSIONIS"tUngit pedes jE s v a ena 34

Luc. 1ji .Amw xxxt. lxix

A. Qr&vmmW, t~~zIA'jfaj2 mmwmnzuw. B. I'kýrzmj, Awc vijew. z4yfirr.B. R*VqteAm3'(.-ru, -rZSVM, rt m=nd=t- F. Rjelmkmt be.'jn sli ZSF&Sjmrya'

fe- . mbdvrnl= Jkltomln.C, mnt~a,Ess&4fc' G, Pwri ad ?nenfnm5rAntr,. ddenterD. xvdaie=Lrj-ptH.r&xnxzSY Lnt.

rjnjDGtw- vqýt m I xir ym bob u cym a scrnitw.

Figure 3. Anton Wierix, Magdalen Anoints Christ's Feet, in Jer6nimo Nadal,Adnotationes et MVeditationes (1595), p1. 34. Photo: Milton S. Eisenhower Library,

Johns Hopkins University, by permission.

Tiffany / VeWizquez's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 447

Figure 4. Francisco Pacheco, Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene, 1616, destroyed,

formerly Alca]5 de Guadaira. Photo: Institut Amatfler d'Art Hispanic, by permission.

448 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

Adnotationes et nieditationes.This comparison is especially apt because Velizquez wasstill an apprentice in Pacheco's studio when the Saint Sebastian was painted, and theseventeen-year-old artist may even have collaborated on aspects of the work.51

Whether or not Velizquez had a hand in Pacheco's painting, the compositionalscheme of the Saint Sebastian provided an important and immediate source for thepicture-within-a-picture in the Christ in the House of Martha and MVlary. By depictingframed images, both works appropriate the kinds of pictures-within-pictures usedin the Adnotationes et meditationes, in which frames as well as the lettered captionsincite the beholder to meditate separately on each scene illustrated. 52 This repre-sents a departure from the precedents of Aertsen and his followers, in which thebackground episodes are usually continuous with the foreground action. 53

Like the kitchen in the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, the foregroundof the Saint Sebastian resembles a seventeenth-century domestic interior.The scene,in fact, depicts Saint Irene nursing Saint Sebastian to health, while a window in thebackground reveals Diocletian's soldiers shooting the martyr with arrows. In theArte de la Pintura, Pacheco provides a detailed description of the work:

In the middle of the picture, in a bed, was painted Saint Sebastian at aboutforty years old, seated with a bowl and a spoonful of rose syrup, and stand-ing, attending to him, that holy widow Irene, who cured him from hiswounds. At the far end, a table with a small glass of balsam and some ban-dages on a plate, which a maid brings.... Next to the bed several arrows,tied with the saint's bloodied cloths.... On the wall, a window, throughwhich the saint is seen in the field, tied to a tree, where arrows are beingshot at him.... 54

Pacheco then writes that he painted the Saint Sebastian for the Hospital de SanSebastiin in the town of Alcali de Guadaira, just outside Seville. The theme of thework therefore alludes to the function of the space for which it was created. Heexplains that he executed the painting in close consultation with the humanist

51Priscilla E. Muller, "Francisco Pacheco as a Painter," Alarsyas 10 (1960-61): 40, emphasized thepainterly quality of the picture-within-a-picture itself and therefore suggested that VelEzquez may havehad a hand in the work. Juliln Gillego, El cuadro dentro del cuadro, 3rd ed. (Madrid: C;itedra, 1991), 159-61, provides a description of Pacheco's Saint Sebastian and relates its compositional technique toVelizquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Alary. On the Saint Sebastian, see also Lubomir Konecn•;"Una ojeada en la circel dorada del maestro Pacheco," Boletin del Museo e Instituto Cani6n Aznar 27(1987): 17-25.

521n the Adnotationes et meditationes, not all of the pictures-within-pictures are framed. It is none-

theless important to emphasize the differentiation between the various scenes in each engraving. Thescenes are further distinguished from each other by the letters and corresponding captions.53

Bryson, Looking at the Overlooked, 153.54

Pacheco,Arte, 681:"Pint6se en el medio del cuadro, en una cama, a San Sebasti5n como de cua-renta afios, sentado, con una escudilla y cuchara de lamedor rosado, y aquella Santa viuda Irene que lecur6 de las heridas que, en pie, le asiste. Una mesa a la cabecera, con un vasico de bilsamo y algunashilas en un plato, que trae una criada.... Junto a la cama algunas saetas, atadas con patios ensangrentadosde! Santo.... En la pared, una ventana, por donde se ve el Santo en el campo, atado a un .irbol, dondele estin asaetando..."

Tiffany / Velilzquez's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 449

Francisco de Medina, providing a valuable glimpse of the interaction between art-ists and scholars that characterized his circle in Seville. Indeed, Pacheco establishesMedina's collaboration as the reason for his extended discussion of the painting,stating, "Because it was the thought [pensainiento] of such an illustrious man ... I

will explain it to those who are interested.'"55 Pacheco's statement indicates that heconsidered his painting to illustrate an elevated concept.

In the Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene, the device of the picture-within-a-picture functions analogously to the framed scenes in Wierix shop engravingssuch as the Magdalen Anoints Christ's Feet (fig. 3). Pacheco's description of the paint-ing in the Arte de la Pintura similarly invites the kind of sustained contemplationencouraged by the Adnotationes et meditationes by guiding the reader from the depic-tion of Sebastian and Irene in the foreground to the picture-within-a-picture in thebackground. His enumeration of the significance of the still-life elements recallsthe method of beholding fostered by engravings such as the Magdalen AnointsChrist's Feet, in which the inscriptions accompanying each scene denote particularbiblical events and remind the reader-beholder of the interrelation among the var-ious Gospel episodes. In this way, each of the elements in Pacheco's compositionrefers to an episode from Saint Sebastian's passion. As he explains, the clothes rest-ing on the chair in the foreground represent those worn by Sebastian in his "secondmartyrdom," while the arrows wrapped in bloodied cloth depict those shot byDiocletian's soldiers, and the olive branch with which Irene "brushes away theflies" alludes to mercy and peace, the meaning of the name Irene. 56 The cross inthe left-hand corner, with the inscription "DEFENsOR ECCLESIAE," is a commondevice in seventeenth-century Spanish painting and encourages the beholder toremember that Sebastian died as a church martyr. The various components ofPacheco's painting, like those in the engraving of the Magdalen Anoints Christ's Feet,are to be meditated upon individually and to encourage the viewer to consider overtime the different stages of Saint Sebastian's life and passion.

Aspects of the Saint Sebastian seem to replicate the mnemonics outlined inSuirez de Salazar's "Tratado de la memoria artificiosa." As in Velizquez's Christ inthe House of Martha and Mary, Pacheco's depiction of Sebastian, Irene, and the maidin contemporary dress corresponds to Suirez de Salazar's suggestion to use peoplewe know to fill our images. Pacheco's representation of Sebastian in bed, holding a

bowl, and attended by two women recalls the exhortation in the "Tratado" toremember a poisoning by picturing "that Francisco, or someone we could easilyremember, is sick in bed," while "the culprit was there, bound, next to the bed, on

one side, the poisonous drink, and on the other, the testament and the many

55Pacheco,Arte, 681:"por set pensamiento de tan insigne var6n ... lo manifestard a los curiosos."Pacheco also tells us that he studied various representations of St. Sebastian. Leo Steinberg, introductionto Art about Art, ed. Jean Lipman and Richard Marshall, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art,NewYork, 1978, 22-23, denmonstrated that the source for the picture-within-a-picture of St. Sebastian'smartyrdom was an engraving by Jan Harmensz Muller after a painting by Hans von Aachen. Theengraving is reproduced in Strauss, Netherlandish Artists, 463.

56pacheco, Arte, 681: "segundo martirio"; "aparta las moxcas."

450 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

neighbors who were there."57 The artist's depiction of the saint "tied to a tree"further echoes this image of the culprit "bound, next to the bed." Perhaps mostimportant, his inclusion of the arrows wrapped in bloodied cloth evokes thepassage in the "Tratado" which admonishes the reader to create distinct andmemorable mental images. As stated in the text, "the images must be of suchquality that we can retain them in the memory for a long time, just as if we wishto remember something despised and miserable, let us pretend to see it bloodied, withpoor clothing, and covered in mud, for the more effective the image, the better weshall remember."58

Pacheco and Medina doubtless considered these elements in the Saint Sebastianto carry a mnemonic function analogous to that explained in the "Tratado." InPacheco's painting, the representation of the bloodied arrows, the saint bound to atree, and the saint in bed holding a bowl serve to imprint images of Sebastian's pas-sion on the beholder's memory, encouraging the viewer to examine these elementsindividually and repeatedly. The artist's creation of a painting to be considered overa prolonged period is crucial to our understanding of his engagement with the artof memory, for as stated in the "Tratado," we must preserve the images we create"in the memory for a long time." Pacheco and Medina may well have seen theimagery of a scene of Saint Sebastian and Saint Irene as appropriate to the devo-tional techniques related to the art of memory precisely because these elements ofSebastian's passion so closely resemble the particulars of the famous example in theAd Herenniuni.

VELAZQUEZ, PACHECO, AND NADAL

The Christ in the House of Martha and Mary demonstrates the complexity ofVelizquez's engagement with the models provided by Pacheco's Saint SebastianAttended by Saint Irene, the engravings of the Adnotationes et nieditationes, and the"inverted" religious paintings by Aertsen and his followers.Velizquez's use of a hor-izontal composition to depict a foreground kitchen scene and background biblicalepisode represents a departure from Pacheco's painting and the engravings in Nadal'streatise, and instead reflects his engagement with Aertsen's works.Yet in the contextof the devotional methods expounded in the Adnotationes et tneditationes,Velizquez'srepresentation of a picture-within-a-picture takes on a new significance. By placing

57Suirez de Salazar, "Tratado," fol. 364v. The text reads: "Imaginaremos q[ue] Fran[cis]co esta

enfermo en la carna o una persona de la qual facilm[en]te nos podriamos acordar.Y q[ue] el reo estabaalli junto a la cama apricionado, de una p[arlte el bebediso de otra el testam[en]to y muchos vecinosq[ue] alli asistian. De esta suerte faciln[en]te nos acordaremos de los testigos, herencia, veneno ymuerto."

'8Suirez de Salazar, "Tratado," fol. 365r: "Las imagines an de ser de tal calidad que las podamos

por largo tiempo retener en la memoria como si nos queremos acordar de una cosa menospreciada yiriserable,fingamos verla ensaqgrentada con vestiduras pobres y cubierta de sieno porq[uej quanto mas eficasfuere la imagen tanto mejor nos acordaremos" (emphasis added). Leslie Korrick, "On the Meaning ofStyle: Nicol6 Circignani in Counter-Reformation Ronie; Word and Image 15, no. 2 (1999): 175, relatesthe corresponding passage in the Ad Herenniunm to the depictions of martyrdom commissioned in 1581for the Roman Jesuit church of Santo Stefano Rotondo.

Tiffany / VelMzquezs "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 451

the framed biblical scene within the setting of a larger, contemporary kitchen,Velizquez, like the engravers, has responded to Ignatius's exhortation to use the sen-sory world as an aid to visualizing episodes from the Gospels.

Velizquez emphasized the distinction between the worldly and spiritual realms

through the contrast of the materiality of the paint in the contemporary scene andthe loose brushstrokes constituting the biblical episode. He juxtaposed his realist

style with the painterly representation of background figures in only one additional

work: his other religious picture-within-a-picture, the Supper at Emmaus (c. 1617,

Blessington, Beit Collection). In the Supper at Emmaus,Velizquez similarlycombined a humble kitchen scene with a framed biblical image and contrasted thenaturalism of the foreground with the fluid strokes of the background. 59 As in the

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, this stark separation between foreground andbackground emphasizes the mnemonic function of the biblical episode, whichseemingly reminds the beholder that Christ's revelation to his disciples is significanteven to the African woman-probably one of Seville's many slaves-in the kitchen.The virtuosic brushwork in both paintings may have contributed to theirdevotional efficacy. As argued in Diego Jimýnez's prologue to the Adnotationes etmeditationes, masterly pictorial technique inspires the lengthy contemplation of

images. Jim6nez explains that the treatise's engravings have been wrought with

great "elegance and beauty of workmanship together with the greatest sanctity and

excellence of theme" in order to "urge all to study and reflection by means of

assiduous meditation."60

In the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary,Vel5izquez guides our reading of

the painting by depicting the old woman pointing toward her young companion,

encouraging us to pause and meditate on the action of the woman whose kitchenwork so closely resembles Martha's attendance to the Lord. As Victor Stoichita has

argued, her pointed finger functions as an exhortatio that introduces Velizquez'spainting to the beholder.6 1 This gesture also functions in relation to the mnemonics

of religion, exhorting the viewer to remember the active life of the foregroundscene before reaching the contemplative life exemplified in the biblical episode. Asin Cordeses's Tratado de las tres vidas, the "inverted" composition in the Christ in the

House of Martha and Mary reminds the beholder that action is a step towardcontemplation.

59For a general discussion ofVelizquez's Supper at Ennnaus, see Rosemarie Mulcahy, Spanish Paint-

ings in the National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 1988), 79-82.60

Nadal, Adnotationes et nieditationes, fol. 2v; quoted and trans. in Walter S. Melion, "Artifice,Memory• and Reforinatio in Hieronymus Natalis's Adnotationes et nieditationes in Evangelia," Renaissance and

Reformation 22, no. 3 (1998): 7: "sed potius ut opificij elegantia ac pulchritudo, simul cum maxima ipsiusargumenti sanctitate atque excellentia, operisque pietate coniuncta, omnes ad illud evoluendum, assi-duaque meditatione versandum invitaret."

61 Stoichita, Self-Aware Ima,ge, 11, asserts that the old woman's finger-pointing is an "exhortatio,introducing the painting," but argues that she is scolding her companion.

452 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/2 (2005)

WINDOWS, PAINTINGS, AND MIRRORS

The equivocal visual qualities of Velizquez's picture-within-a-picture providefurther keys to the artist's interpretation of the scene. His creation of anambiguous framed image represents an important departure from Pacheco'spainting, in which the window shutter makes it clear that the saint's martyrdom isseen through an opening in the wall. 62 In the Christ in the House of Martha andMary, Velizquez avoided providing clues-a shutter, the shadow cast by a pictureframe, or streaks of light on a mirror surface-that would clarify the nature of thebiblical episode. 63 On the contrary, he used his studies of linear perspective andoptics to heighten the indeterminate nature of the framed scene. 64 If the picture-within-a-picture were read as a window and the lines in its corners as orthogonals,the foreground and background scenes would appear to have vanishing points onopposite sides of the composition. 65 Similarly, if the framed scene were a painting,it would need to be submerged in shadow like the rest of the back wall. 66

Although Vehizquez played with the notion of mirror reversals through Christ'sunusual left-handed gesture and Martha's repetition of the foreground figures'poses, the picture-within-a-picture is not a mirror reflection, for the illuminationemerges from opposite sides in the foreground and biblical scenes. 67

The cryptic framed scene thus entices the beholder to question its identity andengage in a close analysis of the painting. VelYizquez's representation of a framedimage that resembles a window, a painting, and a mirror is also significant in that itindicates his early experimentation with the kinds of optical ambiguities he would

6 2As quoted above, Pacheco's text explicitly states that the episode is viewed through "a window."

Velizquez apparently followed Pacheco's model in his own Supper at Einmaus; most scholars believe thatthe light brown patch of paint on the right-hand side of the framed scene represents a window shutter.See, for example, Brown, Vehizquez, 21.63

For various identifications of Velizquez's picture-within-a-picture see, for example, William B.Jordan, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, exh. cat.. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1985, 85;Brown, Vel4zquez, 16-17; P6rez Lozano, "Velizquez en el entorno de Pacheco,' 96; Delenda, Velizquez,27;William B.Jordan and Peter Cherry, Spanish Still Lifefroln Veldzquez to Goya, exh. cat., National Gal-lery, London, 1995, 39; Harris and Davies, cat. no. 21 in Velhzquez in Seville, 132; Jonathan Miller, OnReflection, exh. cat., National Gallery, London, 1998, 124.

6 4Palomino, Vidas, 157, discusses the young Velrizquez's study of perspective. For recent critical

assessments of the artist's interest in optics and perspective, see Martin Kemp, The Science ofArt: OpticalThemes in Western Art froin Brunelleschi to Seurat (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1990), esp. 99-108;Fernando Marias, "El g6nero de Las rneninas: Los servicios de la familia," in Otras nieninas, ed. FernandoMarias (Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 1995), esp. 265-67; Eileen Reeves, "1614-1621:The Buen Pintor ofSeville," chap. 5 in Painting the Heavens: Art and Science ii tile Age of Galileo (Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press, 1997), 184-225;Agustin Bustamante and Fernando Marias, "Entre prictica y teoria: Laformaci6n deVelizquez en Sevilla," in Velhzquez y Sevilla, Estudios, 141-57.

65Peter Cherry, "Los bodegones deVel5zquez y la verdadera imitaci6n del natural," in Velizquez y

Sevilla, Estudios, 88, notes that the foreground and background scenes appear to have separate vanishingpoints. He nevertheless argues that the framed scene is a window.

66Barto1om6 Mestre Fiol, "El 'espejo referencial' en la pintura deVel.izquez:Jesfis ei la casa de

Marta y Maria," Traza y Baza 2 (1973): 22.67

jos6 L6pez-Rey, Veldzquez: A Catalogue Raisonný of His Oeuvre with an Introductory Study (Lon-don: Faber & Faber, 1963), 32 n. 3, pointed out Christ's left-handed gesture. In his Christ in the Houseof Martha and Mary in Rotterdam,Aertsen also represented Christ raising his left hand.

Tiffany / Veltizquez's "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" 453

favor throughout his career, culminating in the brilliantly enigmatic pictures-

within-pictures of Las Hilanderas (ca. 1657/58, Madrid, Museo del Prado) and Las

Meninas (1656, Madrid, Museo del Prado). 68 As in these late works, the indetermi-

nate nature of the background scene challenges the viewer to examine the compo-

sition at length in order to resolve the visual puzzle posed by the artist.

In the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, however, the enigmatic quality

of the framed scene relates to its function as a religious image.The impossibility of

securely identifying the nature of the biblical episode means that Velizquez's

composition cannot be understood as a narrative in which the religious scene is

either a history painting hanging on a seventeenth-century kitchen wall or an event

occurring contemporaneously in an adjacent room. Defying straightforward

readings, the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary encourages the viewer to

consider the symbolic relationship between the active life figured in the foreground

and the contemplative life represented in the religious episode. The ambiguity of

the picture-within-a-picture furthermore heightens its distinction from the rest of

the work and thereby reinforces its function as an individual site of meditation

within the larger setting of the composition. Emphatically differentiated from the

kitchen scene, the framed image urges the beholder to focus on Christ's lesson to

Martha and Mary, even as the painting's foreground elements encourage the viewer

to consider the significance of kitchen work. As a whole, the compositional

structure of the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary invites the beholder to

mediate between the kitchen scene and the framed mnemonic image, reflecting on

the importance of the everyday toils of the active life while bearing in mind "the

best part" embodied by the contemplative life.

68See Juli5n Gillego, Vision et syniboles dans la peinture espaqnole du siMle d'or (Paris: Klincksieck,

1968), esp. 252-53; Stoichita, Se!f-Aware inage, 13; Bryson, Looking at the Overlooked, 152. On the date

of Las Hilanderas, see Brown, Veldzquez, 252 n. 32. For an exemplary discussion of the use of the mirror

in Las Meninas as a puzzle to delight Philip IV, see Marias, "El g6nero de Las meeninas," esp. 263-78.

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TITLE: Visualizing Devotion in Early Modern Seville:Vel%azquez’s “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary”

SOURCE: Sixteenth Cent J 36 no2 Summ 2005WN: 0519600678006

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