Girolamo Righettino’s City Views: Allegories of the Christian Prince, 1583–85

Abstract

In the second half of the 16th century, Girolamo Righettino, a brilliant draughtsman and theologian (a member of the Order of the Canons Lateran), produced city views with ornamental frames characterised by their rich, allegorical programme. The drawings earned him widespread fame and were handsomely rewarded. A recently discovered autograph manuscript by Righettino sheds precious light on his only surviving view – an elaborate plan of Turin (1583). This article offers an introductory portrait of a personality forgotten to history and presents new research that allows us to situate his unique output – at the intersection of art and science, theology and politics, topography and allegory – in the wider context of Counter-Reformation Italy, when the ambitions of absolutist rulers were stoked by the fear of Turkish advances in the Mediterranean.