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Irish Arts Review
Philip II of Spain: Patron of the Arts by Rosemarie MulcahyReview by: Terence O'ReillyIrish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), p. 154Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503133 .
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GO
?
UJ BOOKS
Philip U of Spain: patron of the arts Rosemarie Mulcahy
Dublin: Four Courts 2004
pp 352 h/b 65.00 ills 16 col
ISBN 1-85182-773-0
Terence O'Reilly
Although the essays gathered in this
book have been written for various
occasions and over several years, one's
impression on reading it is of their unity.
Their common focus is the artistic proj
ects patronised by Philip II, in which Dr
Mulcahy finds 'the beginnings of picture
collecting in the modern sense'. In the
time of his ancestors, Ferdinand and
Isabella, the works of art held by the
Crown formed part of the royal tesoro or
'treasure', but his acquisitions paved the
way for the picture gallery, which became
common in the century following. They
also made possible the magnificent collec
tions of his grandson, Philip IV, which
nowadays form the core of the Prado
Museum in Madrid.
The works of art that Philip owned
reached him by several routes, which Dr
Mulcahy carefully describes. Some he
inherited from his forbears, including reli
gious paintings of the Flemish School, to
which he was much attached. Others he
chose himself, and either obtained (among
them, works by Hieronymus Bosch) or
arranged to have copied (for instance, van
Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb). A number
were presented to him as diplomatic gifts,
including the wonderful Christ Crucified
by Benvenuto Cellini. Many, finally, he
commissioned himself, especially those
required in the Escorial, whose construc
tion filled most of his reign (and which
several of these essays discuss).
Considered as a whole, Philip's collect
ing reveals how widely his interests
ranged, from natural history and topog
raphy to mythology and theology. It also
indicates the nature of his artistic tastes,
which were formed, as Dr Mulcahy points
out, at an early stage, during his travels in
Europe as a prince. It was then that he met
Titian, whose paintings he was to admire
for the rest of his life, though it took him
time to appreciate fully the Venetian's
innovatory techniques. Like other patrons
of the period, he enjoyed the company of
artists and took a lively interest in their
work, but more important to him than the
art object itself was its function, and there
fore its location and use. The collection
in El Pardo, for example, which Dr
Mulcahy describes as 'one of the earliest
and best documented portrait galleries' in
Europe, was assembled, first and foremost,
with political ends in mind, while the reli
gious works in the Escorial belonged to an
iconographie scheme shaped by the
liturgy, and were intended, like the sacred
drama itself, to inspire prayer.
The essays are graced throughout by
the author's style, which conveys a warm
interest in people and a judicious appre
ciation of individual works of art. These
qualities are particularly to the fore in the
chapter on one of Philip's favourite artists,
the deaf mute Juan Fern?ndez de
Navarrete, whose career she lovingly
reconstructs, drawing attention to his
Abraham and the three angels (National
Gallery of Ireland) which first sparked her
interest in his-work. There are occasional
misprints in the text, but the book has
been handsomely produced, in collabora
tion with the Patrimonio Nacional, and
it contains over 140 reproductions in
black and white, thoughtfully placed at
apposite points, as well as 16 plates of
fine quality.
Terence O'Reilly is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Hispanic Studies, University
College Cork.
The Making of Marsh's Library: Learning, Politics and Religion in
Ireland, 1650-1750_ Muriel McCarthy and Ann Simmons (eds.)
Four Courts Press: Dublin 2004
pp 288 h/b 55.00 ills 8 b/w
ISBN 1-85182-730-7
Michael Brown
In
2001, Marsh's Public Library in
Dublin was 300 years old. The first pub
lic library in the country, its significance
is celebrated in this volume, which derives
from a three-day conference held that year.
The collection highlights the significance of the library in four distinct ways. First,
it details, in essays by Michael Hunter,
Raymond Gillespie and the introduction
by the current librarian, Muriel McCarthy,
the personality and the pugnacious perse
verance of its founder. Narcissus Marsh
(1638-1713), successively archbishop of
Cashel (1690), Dublin (1694) and Armagh
(1703) was a political defender of the
Church of Ireland, an active member of the
international republic of letters and a
devout Protestant. It was his ambition to
found a library providing facilities for 'all
graduates and gentlemen,' holding the
highest achievements in theology, jurispru
dence, medicine, and beyond (p. 146).
Although the personality of the founder
is a central theme in this book, it is more
than a eulogy of Marsh. A number of essays
take a second vantage point to survey the
library. The essays by David Hayton,
Edward McParland, Ruth Whelan and Toby Barnard assess the library as an institution,
a working, vibrant centre of scholarship and
reflection, and of gossip and tittle-tattle too.
Hayton, in recounting the passage of the
bill of foundation through the Irish parlia
ment, observes how the idea of the library
got entangled in the petty obsessions and
personal interests of the period's politics.
In contrast, McParland views the library as
a building, tucked snugly beside St Patrick's
Cathedral and echoing in miniature some
of the architectural conceits of Marsh's
Oxford college, Exeter. Whelan explores the
mentality of the first librarian, the
Huguenot refugee, Elie Bouh?reau, who
brought to the office European contacts,
and a sideways view of his adopted
Anglicanism. Barnard then situates Marsh's
within the development of libraries in the
154 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW WINTER 2004
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