Les visages d’Alexandre Farnèse, de l’héritier du duché de Parme au défenseur de la foi

• Published in: Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles
• Main Author: Bodart, Diane H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles 03-04-2018
• Subjects: glorification; official portrait; Philippe II; Philip II of Spain; representation; the Low Countries
• ISSN: 1958-9271; 1958-9271
• DOI: 10.4000/crcv.14759

The exemplary figure of c, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, governor of the Low Countries and among the most brilliant generals in the service of Philip II, was celebrated after his death with a series of monuments that glorified him as defender of the Catholic faith. In these statues the face of the prince presents a characteristic broad forehead with frowning brows, flamboyant hair, a proud moustache and a pointed beard. The study attempts to trace the construction of this warlike physiognomy during the lifetime of the prince. Apart from the portraits of his youth, when he was heir to the Duchy of Parma and political hostage at the court of Philip II, most of the portraits of Alessandro Farnese are dated after 1585. In that year he famously took the city of Antwerp, became Duke of Parma and received the collar of the Golden Fleece. After the excess of representation committed by the Duke of Alba, who arrogantly erected a statue to himself, Alessandro Farnese acted with great prudence and waited for an accomplishment sufficiently worthy to diffuse his triumphant image. At this exact moment, the particular frowned forehead appears in his portraits: the tension between the brows creates the shadow of a cloud, characteristic of the leonine physiognomy, a mask of war that suggests a parallel with Leo Belgicus, the leonine mapping of the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries.