Master of Shadows (37 page)

modeled himself: On Rembrandt’s Rubens obsession, see Simon Schama’s indispensable
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 26–27.

but not the reverse: In the twentieth century, many notable writers and entertainers engaged in spycraft, including Noël Coward, Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and Hedy Lamarr. Most became involved with covert activity during World War II.

politique:
On the use of this term, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 43.

“You are going”: Niccolò Machiavelli to Raffaello Girolami, Oct. 28, 1522. Reprinted in Machiavelli,
Chief Works
, 116.

not one motivated by pure altruism: The duke was also interested in the recently vacated admiralty of the Spanish fleet, a title for which he was theoretically eligible as a fellow Habsburg ruler and loyal Spanish client. On Vincenzo’s motivations, see Jaffé,
Rubens and Italy
, 67–73.

centerpiece of the gift: On the full contents of Vincenzo’s gift, see ibid., 67.

copies of works by Raphael: Most were made from collections in Rome, and executed by a minor Italian painter, Pietro Facchetti. Rooses,
Rubens
, 70.

inept soldiering: On Vincenzo’s military career, see Chambers and Martineau,
Splendours of the Gonzaga
, 224.

selected for this mission: On Vincenzo’s selection of Rubens, and on the
mission to Spain generally, see Jaffé,
Rubens and Italy
, 67–73; Rooses,
Rubens
, 53–106; and Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 102–14. That the advent of the artist-diplomat may have been prompted by the need to have an artist capable of restoration work was suggested to me by Elizabeth Honig.

comfortable in the society of court: According to Roger de Piles, Rubens “was born with all the advantages that make a great painter and a great politician.” See “Life of Rubens” (1681), in Baglione, Sandrart, and de Piles,
Lives of Rubens
, 77–78.

“it be not absolutely necessary”: Wicquefort,
Embassador and His Functions
, 49. Wicquefort and Rubens may well have crossed paths.

“he learned with such facility”: Philip Rubens, “Latin Life of Peter Paul Rubens,” 37. On the Verdonck education, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 76.

“There always glimmered”: Joachim von Sandrart, excerpt from
Teutsche Academie
, in Baglione, Sandrart, and de Piles,
Lives of Rubens
, 35.

On Rubens and Stimmer, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 77–79.

“no plague”: Rooses,
Rubens
, 53. It is unclear whether del Monte accompanied Rubens on the mission to Spain for Vincenzo.

Rubens to Rome: On Rubens and Montalto, see Jaffé,
Rubens and Italy
, 9–11.

knew just what he was doing: Vincenzo was not always the most studied aesthete. He said of Rubens, “He is not bad at painting portraits.” Chambers and Martineau,
Splendours of the Gonzaga
, 214.

“I stood there like a dunce”: Rubens to Chieppio, March 29, 1603, in Magurn,
Letters of Peter Paul Rubens
(henceforth
LPPR)
, 27. The events of Rubens’s trip to Spain are largely reconstructed through his voluminous correspondence.

“They almost crossed themselves”: Rubens to Chieppio, March 18, 1603, in ibid., 24. Rubens lamented that he had paid heed to the Mantuan court’s “busybodies and pseudo-experts.”

“No one can accuse me of negligence”: Rubens to Chieppio, April 2, 1603, in ibid., 29.

“I hope that for this first mission”: Rubens to the Duke of Mantua, May 17, 1603, in ibid., 30–31.

“I regret that I am poor”: Rubens to Chieppio, May 17, 1603, in ibid., 32.

“Malicious fate”: Rubens to Chieppio, May 24, 1603, in ibid., 32–34.

“God keep me from resembling them”: Ibid., 33. The most distinguished Spanish painter of the time was the preternaturally strange El Greco. A prejudice against Spanish painting of this period lasted for centuries. In his
Recollections of Rubens
, written at the end of the nineteenth century, the historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote, regarding Rubens’s equestrian portrait of Lerma, “There was no other painter in the whole country who could have produced anything tolerable in that genre.” (4)

“Flemish painting”: Michelangelo, quoted in Snyder,
Northern Renaissance
Art
, 88.

Democritus and Heraclitus: Their stories were found in Seneca and Juvenal, favorites of Rubens, and more recently in an essay by Montaigne with which he may well have been familiar.

“He could still have reserved”: Rubens to Chieppio, July 17, 1603, in
LPPR
, 35.

“great satisfaction”: Rubens to the Duke of Mantua, July 17, 1603, in ibid., 34.

“I do not fear”: Rubens to Chieppio, Sept. 15, 1603, in ibid., 36.

fairly complimentary in his reports: Iberti to the Duke of Mantua, Sept. 15, 1603, in Rooses and Ruelens,
Correspondance de Rubens et documents épistolaires
(henceforth
CDR)
, 1:210. Iberti wrote, “I believe that what he will give me is sincere, because he seems to me an honest man.”

“I should not have to waste more time”: Rubens to Chieppio, Nov. 1603, in
LPPR
, 37–38.

“Qui timide rogat”:
The epigram is spoken by the character Phaedra in Seneca’s drama of that title, itself an adaptation of
Hippolytus
, by Euripedes.

“Aegeus was less anxious”: Philip Rubens to Peter Paul Rubens, 1604, quoted in Lescourret,
Double Life
, 241–42.

“the citie which of all other places”: Thomas Coryat, quoted in Chambers and Martineau,
Splendours of the Gonzaga
, xvii.

The Mantuan Circle of Friends:
On the speculation that Galileo appears in the painting, see Reeves,
Painting the Heavens
.

that leather-bound book: According to an early biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, who saw the book before its destruction in the eighteenth century, there were “observations on optics, on symmetry, on proportions, on anatomy and on architecture, with an inquiry into the principal passions of the soul, and actions based on descriptions by Poets, with examples of the work of the painters.” Quoted in Logan,
Peter Paul Rubens
, 18–19. The book is essential on Rubens’s work as a draftsman.

Santa Croce: A scandal involving the church’s “true cross” fragments also reflected badly on the archduke. On this, and the commission generally, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 99–101.

the son of Jean Richardot: Another of Richardot’s progeny, Guillaume, was at present traveling as a student with Philip Rubens in Italy. He appears, along with Philip, Peter Paul, Justus Lipsius, and presumably Galileo, in Rubens’s
Mantuan Circle of Friends
.

“out of pure necessity”: Rubens to Chieppio, Dec. 2, 1606, in
LPPR
, 39–40.

Rubens admired Caravaggio: On Rubens’s affinity for the Italian, and his purchase of the
Death of the Virgin
for Vincenzo, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 131–33.

a gentleman scholar: The art historian Julius Held has stated “flatly” that Rubens was
“the
most learned artist who ever lived.”
Rubens and His Circle
, 167.

“I know not which to praise most”: Quoted in Rooses,
Rubens
, 212.

“by far the best”: Rubens to Chieppio, Feb. 2, 1608, in
LPPR
, 42–43.

“As he is my vassal”: Archduke Albert to the Duke of Mantua, Aug. 5, 1607, in CDR, 1:388.

“It will be hard for me”: Rubens to Chieppio, Oct. 28, 1608, in
LPPR
, 45–46.

“Who is of so hard and flinty a heart”: Lipsius,
Tvvo Bookes of Constancie
, 72.

Maria had taken care: On Maria’s will, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 134. See also Rooses,
Rubens
, 3.

“for the bewtie”: Carleton to John Chamberlain, Dec. 15, 1616, in Sainsbury,
Original Unpublished Papers Illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens
(Henceforth, Sainsbury), 9–12.

his family’s sad story: On the Rubens family background, see Rooses,
Rubens
, 2–3.

a thriving metropolis: On Antwerp’s golden years, see especially Isacker and Uytven,
Antwerp;
Murray,
Antwerp in the Age of Plantin and
Brueghel;Van der Stock,
Antwerp;
and Sutton,
Age of Rubens
, especially Sutton’s essay “The Spanish Netherlands in the Age of Rubens,” 106–30, and David Freedberg’s, “Painting and the Counter Reformation in the Age of Rubens,” 131–45.

“the mother of the arts”: Van Mander,
Dutch and Flemish Painters
, 419.

“the metropolis of the world”: Quoted in Isacker and Uytven,
Antwerp
, 85.

“of all the universe”: Quoted in Honig,
Painting & the Market
, 4. This is the definitive source on the market scenes of Aertsen and his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer.

Charles had united the territories: This narrative is particularly indebted to the work of Geoffrey Parker, Jonathan Israel, and Simon Schama. See in particular Parker,
Dutch Revolt;
and Israel,
Conflicts of Empires
.

denuded of traditional Catholic language: See Rooses,
Rubens
, 3.

righteous fulminations: On the iconoclasm, see Freedberg,
Iconoclasm and Painting in the Revolt of the Netherlands;
and Crew,
Calvinist Preaching
.

“Twenty persons bore the image”: Dürer,
Dürer’s Record of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries
, 42.

a standing ruin: Richard Clough, an English merchant surveying the damage to the cathedral, wrote, “It looked like a hell … They have so spoiled it that they have not left a place to sit on.” Quoted in Crew,
Calvinist Preaching
, 12. The catastrophe was redoubled in the 1581 “quiet Iconoclasm,” a further devastation following the removal of Catholics from positions of authority.

“send a soldier to Flanders”: Parker,
Army of Flanders
, 70.

“Putting in new men”: Quoted in Parker,
Dutch Revolt
, 107.

“We care nothing for your privileges”: Quoted in Schama,
Rembrandt’s
Eyes
, 55.

“who extirpated sedition”: Quoted in ibid., 55. The statue was eventually removed and melted down by the Spanish crown to avoid inciting the local population. See Held, “On the Date and Function of Some Allegorical Sketches by Rubens,” errata.

“Everyone must be made in constant fear”: Duke of Alva, quoted in Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 57.

“He who becomes master”: Machiavelli,
The Prince
, chap. 5, in
Chief Works
.

“A goodly sum”: Quoted in Geyl,
Revolt of the Netherlands
, 102.

“Thou takest away”: Excerpt from the Ghent Paternoster, in R. G. D. Laffan,
Select Documents of European History
(London: Methuen, 1930), 103.

Jan and Maria Rubens: On the saga of the Rubens family, and Jan’s affair with Anna of Saxony, see Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 41–71; and Rooses,
Rubens
, 5–15. Both are reliant on Bakhuizen van den Brink’s
Het huwelijk van Willem van Oranje met Anna van Saxen
.

“every satisfaction”: Maria Rubens to Jan Rubens, quoted in Rooses,
Rubens
, 8.

“How could I have the heart”: Maria Rubens to Jan Rubens, quoted in ibid., 9–10.

“for the sake of my poor children”: Maria Rubens to Johan of Nassau, quoted in Schama,
Rembrandt’s Eyes
, 67.

“the little girl”: Ibid., 66.

Alva’s terror was only just beginning: On Alva and the beginning of the Dutch rebellion, see Parker,
Dutch Revolt
, 99–168; and Geyl,
Revolt of the Netherlands
, 98–118.

The Spanish Fury’s viciousness: See Parker,
Dutch Revolt
, 169–87.

Alessandro Farnese: On Farnese’s sweeping military vision and the planned Spanish invasion of the British Isles, see Mattingly,
Armada
, 43.

“It is the saddest thing”: Quoted in Sutton, “Spanish Netherlands in the Age of Rubens,” 108.

even with the Scheldt closed: Flemish politicians continued to lobby for the reopening of the Scheldt during this period, to no effect.

“I will not dare to follow him”: Rubens to Johann Faber, April 10, 1609, in
LPPR
, 52.

“I have little desire to become a courtier again”: Ibid.

his first major commission: Abraham Janssens, who was superseded by Rubens as the preeminent master of Antwerp, also painted an allegorical celebration of the Twelve Years’ Truce.

“I cannot behold”: Domenicus Baudius to Rubens, Oct. 4, 1611, in Rooses,
Rubens
, 213.

handsome house: On its history and contents, see especially the works of Muller:
Rubens as Collector;
“Rubens’s Collection in History,” introduction to Belkin and Healy,
House of Art
, 11–85; “Perseus and Andromeda on Rubens’s House;” and “Rubens’s Museum of Antique Sculpture.” See also Rooses,
Rubens
, 145–55; and Baudouin, “Rubens House at Antwerp.”