Design for a "Quarantore" Decoration
Federico Zuccaro (Zuccari)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This carefully drawn scale model provides a design for a liturgical practice that came to be widely celebrated in the late sixteenth century. As shown here, the Eucharist was placed in a small sepulcher where it remained, and was worshiped, for the same forty hours that Christ's body lay in the tomb prior to the Resurrection. Federico has added another level of significance by alluding to the moment of the Transfiguration, when the apostles saw Christ conversing with the Old Testament prophets Elijah and Moses-seen here in the guise of statues-and the voice of God the Father spoke from a cloud, identifying Christ as his "beloved son." This tableau, particularly the illumination and fictive clouds of the celestial realm, anticipates the elaborate theatrical "machines" that would mark the Devotion of the Forty Hours in the seventeenth century. This detailed presentation drawing offers a design for a temporary structure erected for a devotion of "Quarent' Ore" (Forty Hours). The host was continuously adored for forty hours, reflecting the time between Christ's death and his Resurrection. As seen in the drawing, the host lay in a casket or sarcophagus placed on a temporary structure in a side altar or chapel. Probably originiating in Milan, this liturgical practice became common during the second half of the sixteenth century as a formal plea for intercession in times of danger or calamity. It is still practiced, though with changes, in the Roman Catholic Church today.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.