Il Vero disegno della processione del Corpus Domini fatta dalla S.ta di N.S.re Papa Alessandro VII...

An extremely rare engraving depicting Pope Alexander VII during the Corpus Christi procession in St. Peter's Square in 1655.

Printed by the small publisher Carlo Ceci, with the imprint Carlo Ceci dietro S. Carlo de Catinari the print is signed lower left with the monogram CLNF. The work appears to be extremely rare; the only institutional example we have recorded is preserved in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana [Stamp.Barb. X. I. 31, fig. 56a].

The work documents the Corpus Christi procession, an ancient ceremony held since the 13th century on the Sunday following the feast of the Holy Trinity. After celebrating Mass in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope began the solemn procession through St. Peter's Square, reaching Porta Castello where the Blessed Sacrament, a host enclosed in a monstrance under a canopy, was exposed for public adoration. However, “another use was introduced in this same function by Alexander VII Chigi, who, in the first year of his pontificate, being unable to walk around the procession due to the inconvenience caused by the cut suffered in extracting the stone while he was nuncio in Cologne, nor wishing to go like his predecessors seated in the gestatorial chair, had a machine called Talamo made, based on Bernini's design, on which he was to carry the Blessed Sacrament kneeling, as appears from a medal of his reported by Molinet, Histor. Summ. Pont. per Numismata, page 139, Lutetiae, 1679, by Bonanni, Numismata Pontif., tom. II, n. 26 and by Venuti, Numismata Rom. Pontif., page 271, as well as from the actual drawing of the said machine published on copper by Carlo Ceci in 1655” (see Gaetano Moroni, Le cappelle pontificie cardinalizie e prelatizie, Venice, 1841, pp. 281-284).

A magnificent work, printed on contemporary laid paper, trimmed to the plate and mounted on an old paper support, otherwise in excellent condition.

Bibliografia

Orietta Sartori, Saverio Franchi, Le impressioni sceniche. Dizionario bio-bibliografico degli editori e stampatori romani e laziali, vol. II, p. 22.