The Dürer Files: 1c. The Bees & Keys of House Barberini (Completed 10/5/2024)

Pope Urban VIII Barberini's coat-of-arms, 1600s. Geometry: 2024, DS.

"Originally from the small Tuscan town of Barberino Val d’Elsa, the Barberini family moved to the regional metropolis of Florence in the early 11th century. They grew prosperous as wool, grain and textile merchants, but later came into conflict with the powerful Medici dynasty and fled to Rome after the Medici seized control of Florence in the 1500s. This did not deter the Medici from assassinating prominent Barberini family member Francesco di Antonio, but his son Francesco di Carlo survived to see their business flourish and ultimately rose to the exalted position of papal treasurer. The family’s good fortune was to continue, and in 1623 Cardinal Maffeo Barberini was ordained Pope Urban VIII."

- Excerpt from an entertaining article about the House of Barberini from Ben's Bees. While not the most popular pope in some respects, Pope Urban was an avid supporter and collector of art. In fact, the many members of the Barberini dynasty were all great patrons of the arts, amassing an impressive collection which can be found at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and museums throughout the world. Inset right is an example: a stunning twin-tailed mermaid or mixoparthenos - a Vitruvian mermaid, if you think about it - housed at the Met Museum in New York. Little is actually known about her for certain, but, let's face it, this bronze siren is a show-stopper and, in some odd way, she became my guide at first encounter.

"With Pope Urban VIII, Gian Lorenzo Bernini became the official artist of the court and it is to this architect and artist that we owe the creation of many objects that adorn the city centre of the capital. The Barberini family had a coat of arms that included three bees on a blue background next to a papal tiara and to the keys of St. Peter. It is no coincidence that many popes and prominent figures resorted to symbols to express their position and to emphasize their own programs and ideals. The bee has always been a symbol of hard work, dedication, and eloquence. St. Ambrose and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, both connoisseurs and propagators of the Holy Scriptures were associated with this symbol, and in hagiographic sources they are often at the centre of episodes with bees as protagonists.

- Via another informative article written by Scuola Romit regarding the mysterious Barberini family. Their coat-of-arms can also be seen on the coin inset left (above). It (and the sculpture introducing the post) may have been designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, an architect as well as a sculptor, whose grandfather was also an architect.

Regarding the coin, presumably, it was minted for or by Urban. The combination of keys and crown (the papal tiara), however, had been a generic papal emblem and ecclesiastical symbol since, at least, the 15th century. Suffice to say, it's inclusion into the Barberini coat of arms (the shield with the three bees) required a specific symmetry which is made evident by the ovoid shown in the second image (inset left).

Both examples of the coat of arms have ovoids with spirals in all 4 quadrants. I deliberately neglected to include the large pentagrams to illustrate that this ovoid is actually a combination of two smaller pentagrams as well. (See diagram inset right, below.)

"These commissioned artworks often teem with suns and bees (the Barberini family coat of arms had three bees), as also the Cortona fresco does. At one end of the sky sits the eminent solar Divine Providence, while at the other end are putto and flying maidens holding aloft the papal keys, tiara, with robe belt above a swarm of heraldic giant golden bees. Below Providence, the simulated frame crumbles. Time with a scythe seems to swallow a putto's arm. As the graceful bearer of the twelve stars that constitute Crown of Immortality is unequivocally extending it to the heraldic swarm, she earnestly looks towards Divine Providence."

- A description provided by Wiki of Italian Baroque painter, Pietro da Cortona's monumental fresco: Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power, created between 1633 and 1639, and the centerpiece of this post, as we will see.

"The big fresco is conceived as a single epic narration even though the artist decided to use a huge amount of images to fill the entire vault, painting various scenes separated in the several panels of the ceiling. The variety of the scenes which overlap and run into the vault forces the observer to move back and forth across the entire ceiling to follow the sequence of images, which are linked together, creating a constant relationship with the surroundings...  The effect is that of a recreation of reality that captivates the viewer, involving their senses and provoking their wonder. Considered from this point of view the Barberini ceiling has no precedent in the history of art and represents the blooming of a new language. The decoration of the vault confirms Cortona’s position as a great history painter. In the Rome of his days this commission conferred Cortona supremacy, which would accompany him throughout his career as a painter."

-  An astute observation via Simona Albanese - our "personal connection to Italy in the heart of Brisbane" - from her 2006 thesis submitted to the University of Auckland regarding The Triumph of Divine Providence, another name referring to Pietro da Cortona's creation.

Thus far, Albanese has written the most informative article I could find on the web regarding this masterwork. But, I will only be (geometrically addressing) a small detail of what, in terms of beauty, intricacy of design, clarity of artistic vision, and sheer magnitude of size and contour, should be classified as another Wonder of the World! Inset right is a detail of the fresco; the detail I tested is framed in red. For the full fresco, see the Albanese page, or,  my chosen image source, this fabulous Web Gallery of Art page.

***

"But, these secrets of Pythagorean-Platonic harmonic geometry, for which the golden section is, if not the keystone at least the symbolic instrument, after being loudly acclaimed publicly for a half a century, were once again obscured. Palladio and Michelangelo (and, perhaps, Gabriel) were probably the last architects to still deliberately apply the proportions produced by the golden section and the Vitruvian concepts of symmetry and eurhythmy in their works...

Only the baroque, which is generally scorned and poorly understood, continues to 'sing the cathartic geometry' in its waves of stone and stucco."

- A small excerpt from Chapter 8 of The Golden Number: Pythagorean Rites and Rhythms in the Development of Western Civilization by Matila Ghyka.

In the quote above, Matila Ghyka reminds us that the golden section was revitalized during the Baroque period. He was referring to architecture specifically but he may have been unaware of how extensively pentagonal phi was used at the time by artists and artisans alike. Of course, he did not have excess to the WWW in the 1930's... which we obviously do. How else could I find an article regarding an Italian work of art written by an academic in Brisbane? In the earlier half of the 20th century this wouldn't have been as readily possible.

That being said, even with the WWW at my fingertips I have only recently been introduced to Pietro da Cortona  and his masterpiece... and, as I've mentioned, this was revealed to me by the enigmatic golden siren. Really.

Meanwhile, in the midst of constructing this post, I came to the conclusion that the Bernini/Barberini spirals may have been the inevitable result of having to marry the 3 Barberini bees with the (given) symmetry of the Papal keys and crown symbol - possibly designed in the 1400s by an unknown artisan - which, as you can see (inset right) - has an undeniably pentagonal symmetry. For the artist, Bernini, one thing may have led to another, and an intriguing phi symmetrical relationship - the golden egg - just happened to emerge. For Bernini the architect, however, it should have been a fundamental exercise in geometry. Then again, for a magician... well, we won't speculate further.

Moving closer to the point, while the Barberini logo is the theme of this post, my sole purpose was not to interpret it. Instead, my goal was to present the subtly elegant ways in which a great artist might utilize pentagonal symmetry.

To this end, I've posted a series of details of Cortona's Triumph superimposed with the applicable pentagonal geometry. Text will be minimal. Click on any image (below the jump) to enjoy a slide show.

It begins here... with the bees...