“Looking at such works as illustrations in books or on a computer monitor, distorts the view of…ceiling paintings. Only on location, within the spatial context, and viewed from below at an angle, does the task of the painter become clear and comprehensible: the design of a composition in which the messages contained therein includes the viewers themselves, who are gazing upward.”—Wolfgang Wolters
Mapping All Above is a database dedicated to examining fourteen Venetian church ceiling cycles that demonstrates how many of them, particularly the ones painted from 1550s onward, correspond to the decrees set forth at the Council of Trent. This visualization allows for a more comprehensive window to the time period in question. You can browse the collection on churches and each ceiling cycle with their accompanying didactic information. The viewer can see the churches on a historical map of Venice. The database provides an overview of an entire ceiling and its context within the church interior as well as a detailed dissection of ceiling components. The database allows for a comparative analysis of churches, and includes three on-line thematic exhibitions on iconography, placement of the cycle in the complex, and matters of patronage. The spiritually uplifting program of Counter –Reformation art was an important development in 16th-century Venice that this visualization project hopes to re-create. Today’s viewer can engage in a virtual experience that parallels the original intentions of the Church, the artist, and the patrons who wished to provide the 16th-century audience with a stimulating and educational religious experience.
Synopsis of the Council of Trent Decrees
Session 13—Reasserted the Catholic position on the Eucharist, confirmed dogma of Real Presence and Transubstantiation. During this session, the Council wanted to highlight that Christ is present in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. “He [the Lord Jesus Christ] poured forth as it were the riches of His divine love towards, man making a remembrance of his wonderful works; and He commanded us, in the participation thereof, to venerate His memory, and to show forth his death until He come to judge the world” (Waterworth p.77).
Session 24 Chapter 7—The virtue of the Blessed Sacrament should be instructed by the clergy to insure that the laity grasped the nature of the Blessed Sacrament before receiving it.
Session 25—“On the Invocation, Veneration, and Relics, of the Saints, in Sacred Images.” This decree aimed to legitimize the use of images “teaching them, that the saints who reign together with the Christ, offer up their own prayers to God for men; that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke the, and to have recourse to their prayers, aid (and) help for obtaining benefits from God, through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord…” (Waterworthp.234)