Veronica in Ugo da Carpi's Panel. Similarities to the Holy Face

 

by Antonio Bini

A work of art can hold many surprises even after centuries. This is the case of the Panel of the Sudarium of the Holy Face by Ugo dei Conti di Panico, known as Ugo da Carpi, commissioned by Pope Clement VII for the Jubilee of 1525, which shows Veronica unfurling the veil of the Holy Face between the apostles Peter and Paul.

The work was intended for the altar of the Holy Face, located in the lower part of the ciborium (freestanding edifice) of the ancient basilica, which in the upper part housed the Veronica, closed in a special chest, with a number of bolt locks controlled by the canons of St. Peter's, while the final key was in the hands of the pope. The ciborium is comprehensible in the illustration, shown below, by Jacopo Grimaldi, canon of St. Peter's, along with a map of the old basilica showing the location of the ciborium close to the Holy Door.

arrow points to the location of the Ciborium

Arrow points to the description of the Ciborium as the altar of the Holy Face and Sudarium 

Da Carpi's work appears destined to arouse new interest thanks to recent diagnostic analyses that have revealed the uniqueness of the work, confirming that it is not a painting, as noted in the margin by the author himself who wrote  "per Ugo da Carpi intaiatore fata senza penello", (by Ugo da Carpi engraver made without a paintbrush) but a masterpiece of engraving produced through multi-layered printing.

The work was at the center of an anecdote told by Giorgio Vasari, who refers to the conversation he had with Michelangelo:

"Ugo da Carpi, though a mediocre painter, was nevertheless, in other fancies, of the most acute genius. And since, as I have said, he was a painter, I will not be silent that he painted in oil without using a paintbrush, but with his fingers, and partly with his quirky instruments, a panel that is in Rome at the altar of the Holy Face; which panel, as I was one morning with Michelangelo to hear Mass at the said altar and seeing written upon it that Ugo da Carpi had made it without a paintbrush, I laughingly showed this inscription to Michelangelo, who also laughingly replied "It would have been better if he had used the paintbrush and done it in a better manner" (Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Architects,  Italian painters and sculptors).                                              

Both Vasari and Michelangelo expressed their critical judgment by dwelling on the artistic value of the work, not understanding the meaning of the artist's message, who evidently wanted to experiment with a mode of reproduction that would allow him to respect, in some way, the acheropite nature of the Holy Face, which Ugo da Carpi had certainly been able to see.

Vasari also speaks of the "Holy Face" and the episode he describes highlights the importance of that altar at the time, where only the work of Ugo da Carpi was visible.

This hypothesis regarding Ugo da Carpi's intention to respect the acheropite nature of the Holy Face had already been put forward by Giovanni Morello, even before recent scientific examinations, on the occasion of the display of the work in the exhibition The Face of Christ, inaugurated on December 9, 2000 at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, which concluded the Great Jubilee of 2000.  For that exhibition Morello wrote that "the realization  cannot be connected to the mere whim or extravagance of the artist,  but rather to the very nature of the work, which was to reproduce the Veronica, an acheropite image, that is, not made by human hands" (cf. Il Volto di Cristo, Electa, Milan, 2000, p. 111). And Morello, at the time director of the Vatican museums, wrote with full knowledge of the facts.              

The panel was exhibited in Turin from June 16 to August 22, 2022, at the Medieval Court of Palazzo Madama and was exhibited again in Carpi, five hundred years after its creation, in Ugo's hometown.

The work, which has lost its original brightly colored quality, is considered by Pietro Zander, head of the Artistic Heritage section of the Fabrica of St. Peter's Basilica and curator of the two exhibitions, to be one of the most important works in St. Peter's.

I was able to visit the exhibition in Carpi and see the work up close, on display in the Museums of Palazzo dei Pio from February 24 to June 29, 2024. In the exhibition, several panels illustrate in detail the note written by Ugo da Carpi, to emphasize how the work was executed "without a paintbrush".

Fr. Heinrich Pfeiffer opined that Ugo da Carpi was inspired rather by the Mandilion, which at that time was preserved in the Church of San Silvestro, rather than by the Veronica (Holy Face), as it would have been "easier for him to imitate an icon than the image on the Veil which varies continuously and which presents itself with a different appearance according to the illumination and angle of the observer" (Il Volto Santo,  ed. Carsa, Pescara, 2000, p. 23).

These are certainly well-founded hypotheses, even if some details closely related to the face, examined a few centimeters from the Panel, such as the eyes, open, but with pupils of different sizes and the nose, which is swollen, suggest that the artist was inspired by the Holy Face.