PIETRO DA CORTONA (CORTONA 1596-ROME 1669)
A design for a Quarantore
c.1632-3RCIN 904448
Cardinal Francesco Barberini commissioned Pietro da Cortona to design an elaborate temporary setting in San Lorenzo in Damaso, Rome, for the 1633 Quarantore celebrations – forty hours’ devotion of the consecrated host. The structure consisted of wooden architecture, sculptures in papier mache or stucco, and paintings in watercolours on thin canvas or linen. This was the most costly such apparatus ever built, and was used annually for the next fifteen years.
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