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 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 22:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Irish Arts Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish Arts Review(2002-).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.54 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:22:23 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.54 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:22:23 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions