Page 106 - El arte del poder

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Review of the Troops at Barcelona
Second panel in the Conquest of Tunis by Charles V series Wilhelm Pannemaker (act. 1535-†1581), tapestry weaver; Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen (1500-1599), painter; Pieter Coeck van Aelst (1502-1550), painter
Brussels, Brabant, c. 1554
Gold, silver, silk, and wool; 532 x 715 cm
Patrimonio Nacional. Madrid, Palacio Real, inv. no. TA.13/2, 10005908
bibliography: Ritter von Birk 1884, pp. 167-220; Ritter von Engerth 1884, pp. 145-166; Exposición Universal 1888; Ritter von Engerht 1889, pp. 419-428, illus. XII-XXIII; Junquera and Herrero 1986, p. 77; Orso 1986, pp. 133-143; Herrero 1991, pp. 74-81; Herrero 1992, pp. 72-75; Herrero 1994, pp. 89-91; A.G.E. 1995, pp. 67-71 and 337-339, fig. 2; Herrero 2000; Campbell 2002, pp. 267-270, fig. 110
Charles I of Spain, fifth emperor of Germany, commissioned the weaving of the tapestry series known as the Conquest of Tunis to commemorate the military and naval expedition undertaken in 1535 against the famous corsair Kahir ad-Din Barbarossa, and the power of the Turkish sultan Suleiman in the Western Mediterranean. The campaign ended with the capture of La Goulette and the city of Tunis itself on 21 July that year.
The Tunis tapestries were the costliest set Charles V acquired. Consisting of twelve huge panels measuring a total of some 600 square meters (6,458 square feet), the series took a long time to produce, as the process involved painting cartoons (of which ten survive to this day in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna) and drafting the inscriptions in Latin and Spanish before actually weaving the tapestries. Wilhelm Pannemaker, a Brussels tapestry weaver active from 1535 to 1578, signed the contract for the execution of the series on 20 February 1545. Before being sent to Spain, the tapestries were exhibited in the Chapter House of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Antwerp and later used as adornments at the wedding of Philip II and Mary Tudor at the English court.
The panels, woven in Pannemaker’s workshop between 1548 and 1554, were based on paintings by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen and Pieter Coeck van Aelst. For greater clarity, the key events and the location and topography of the places featured in the tapestries are described in the explanatory inscriptions—in Spanish in the upper cartouches and in Latin verse in the cartouche in the lower border. The monarch’s arms and the two-headed eagle symbolizing the empire are shown in the upper corners of the border of interlaced circles that frames the tapestries. The cross and fusil of Burgundy, encircled by a floral wreath, occupy the lower corners, while the Pillars of Hercules and Charles V’s motto—“Plus Ultra,” devised
in 1516 to serve him in his capacity as grand master of the order of the Golden Fleece—are interspersed in the centre of the side borders.
Burgundian or ceremonial etiquette—the practices, styles, and customs that were observed and continued by all the monarchs of the House of Austria who reigned in Spain until the advent of the Bourbon dynasty—established the use of tapestries at solemn court events. These occasions included, in particular, christenings of princes and infantes in the Chapel Royal, marriage settlements, pledges of allegiance of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon to the crown princes, and peace agreements, usually held in the Golden Room of the Alcázar palace in Madrid.
The Conquest of Tunis was thus exhibited on many occasions throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The series regularly adorned the monastery of San Jerónimo and convent of La Encarnación in Madrid, the cathedral and the church of San Pablo in Valladolid, Saragossa cathedral, and the Royal Hall of Lisbon palace.
In order to ensure the conservation of Charles’s tapestry set, Philip V (1700-1746), the first monarch of the House of Bourbon, commissioned a copy from the Vandergoten family. He had brought these weavers to Spain from Antwerp in 1720 to set up the Madrid royal tapestry manufactory.
Both the ten surviving panels of Charles V’s original series and the twelve of Philip V’s set of replicas belong to the Patrimonio Nacional tapestry collection.1
The present tapestry, the second in the set, depicts the emperor’s arrival at Barcelona in command of his army on 3 April 1535, and his general inspection of the armada on 14 May. The fleet consisted of the Portuguese caravels commanded by Antonio de Saldaña, the Genoese galleys of Admiral Andrea Doria, and the Castilian ships of the famous seaman Álvaro de Bazán. The various corps of Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese gentlemen are lined up for inspection in an area called Campo de la Laguna, outside the Perpignan gate. The main figures on horseback can be recognized as the empress’s brother Don Luis of Portugal, the Duke of Alba, and Charles V himself. Positioned further in the background, the emperor is shown fully armed except for his head, which is clad in a cap with visor, and he holds a gilt iron mace. Also worthy of note is the horseman bearing the Genoese standard of crimson silk displaying the Virgin with the Child in her arms.
The painters of cartoons overcame the problem of the monotony of war scenes by using a very high horizon line and depicting the events with great precision in the foreground. The tapestry preserves the Brussels-Brabant escutcheon and monogram in the left corner of the lower selvage and the monogram of W. Pannemaker in the right selvage. c.h.c.
1. Herrero 1986; Herrero 2000.
armors as works of art and the image of power 105