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ELIZABETH KING | Clockwork
Prayer
Part II: Don Carlos and the Two Monks
Was it too much, in searching the descriptions
of the secular and religious celebrations following Don Carlos' return
to health, to hope for a mention of a small promised clockwork automaton?
Yet I did find something: a volume in Spanish by José A. García-Diego:
Los relojes y autómatas de Juanelo Turriano. The Clocks
and Automata of Juanelo Turriano. Madrid, 1982. Published by Tempvs Fvgit,
Monografías Españolas de Relojería. Among the plates
are photographs of two small automata associated with Turriano, one a
dancing lady with a lute (figs. 3, 4), now
in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the other the figure of
the monk (fig 2) now at the Smithsonian.
[12]
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figure
3 |
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figure
2 (repeated) |
García-Diego writes: "This second
automaton represents a friar. In contrast with the musical woman, I would
say that its personality is, for me at least, considerably unpleasant."
[13]
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figure 4 |
Regarding the monk's attribution, he cites two
catalog entries for it, from sales exhibitions, one in Geneva and another
in Zurich in 1976, prior to the Smithsonian purchase. The Zurich source
speculates a south German origin. But in 1980 the Smithsonian Institution,
having acquired the monk, included it in the ambitious show "The
Clockwork Universe"—the golden age of German clockmaking, 1550
to 1650, and here the monk is labelled as being of either German or Spanish
origin. [14]
García-Diego comments: "The
affirmation that it could be of Spanish origin is based on 'the conception
and realistic modelling of the head of the monk'; that to my understanding
is only mediocre and (although I am not an expert) without
special connection to the art of our country" (p 105). Then he adds
this:
But in the cited catalog of Geneva a hypothesis
was given about when the figure of the religious one could have been
fabricated, of which I think I should record mention.
It is supported in an announcement by Father Servius Gieben, Director
of the Historical Institute of the Capuchins in Rome. According to him,
it would represent San Diego de Alcalá, a Franciscan who died
in 1463.
That would permit connecting it to the Spanish Court, since the episode
of how his mummy was placed in the bed of Prince Don Carlos was known,
wounded in the head in a supposedly fatal fashion, having fallen down
stairs (1562); which had the effect of an immediate cure and later,
upon petition of Philip II, the canonization of the friar.
Father Servius continues and I copy:
"In this climate of religious exaltation—processions, public
prayers, pilgrimages for obtaining a cure for the Prince—it is
in that which the fabrication of the automaton found itself as a kind
of votive offering and—why not?—in order to urge the young
prince to a more serious life (he was very capricious). The date should
be 1562 or a little later, and the author Juanelo Turriano (or de la
Torre, dead in 1585) who was chief engineer for Philip II." (pp
105-06)
Here was encapsulated the
very story David Todd at the Smithsonian had told me years ago! Mummy
or no mummy, here is the notion of a votive offering, a promise, an act
of gratitude. But who was Father Servius Gieben? And when did he write
his hypothesis? In great excitement I read on . . . and found García-Diego
concluding several pages later that he could not agree with either the
attribution or the date. In fact he groups several automata linked to
Turriano, the monk included, and places them instead in the eighteenth
century, 200 years later! According to this author, only the beautiful
lady with the lute in Vienna is spiritual enough to remain in Turriano's
name. [15]
But he does include another
plate: a close-up of the face of the monk is paired with an engraving
depicting, we're told, the head of San Diego de Alcalá, fig. 5.
[16]
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figure
5 |
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