Painting of St. Gonzaga springs to life: Rare report & unrecorded etching.
[Saint Gonzaga]. Prodigiosa risanazione ultimamente seguìta in Roma per intercessione di S. Luigi Gonzaga della Compagnia di Gesù. In Roma: per Giuseppe, e Niccolò Grossi, 1765. 4to [27.7 x 15.9 cm], VIII pp., with woodcut initial. Disbound. Sewing notches at left edge, narrow bottom margin, minor spotting and staining.
[With:]
[Miraculous painting] / Joseph Kollanetz. H. Aloÿsius Gonzaga S I wie er im Jahr 1765 de[n] 10te Februarÿ zu Rom dem Novitzen der Gesellschaft Jesu Nicolo Celestin in tödlicher Krankheit erschünen ihn in Augenblick gesund gemacht und die Andacht zum Herz Jesu anbefohlen. Vienna: Jo. Kollanetz, s.a. [last third of 18th century]. [12.5 x 7.5 cm]. [1] f. etching. Trimmed to platemark, minor staining and remnants of mounting on verso.
Very rare (no U.S. copies) first and only edition of this news report describing how a miraculous painting of Saint Aloysius de Gonzaga (1568-91) came to life in 1765 in Rome and saved the 17-year-old Jesuit novice Niccolo Luigi Celestini from a grave illness. Offered here with the document is an unrecorded 18th-century etching depicting the miraculous painting stirring to life.
The story is as follows: Seemingly on his deathbed and unable to recognize anything except the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Celestini suddenly was cured. He then stated that the portrait of Gonzaga on the adjacent wall had begun to glow, and that Gonzaga turned toward him and healed him. This miracle was quickly published in the pamphlet offered here, and the story quickly spread. It was soon known in the Americas, where, e.g., it was painted in 1766 by the Mexican artist Miguel Cabrera (c. 1715-68) (Templo de Loreto, Mexico City; the picture is now on loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Celestini thereafter vowed to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to St. Gonzaga.
The etching seen here is by the Viennese artist Joseph Kollanetz (active c. 1775) and is a witness to the story’s rapid spread in German-speaking Catholic lands. It depicts the painting of Gonzaga at the moment of its visionary animation. The text at the foot of the print can be translated, “St. Aloysius de Gonzaga, Society of Jesus, as he appeared in the year 1765 on the 10th of February in Rome to the novice of the Society of Jesus Nicolo Celestin, suffering a fatal illness, and made him well in an instant and ordered his devotion to the Heart of Jesus.”
Kollanetz produced another print of the subject, with nearly identical text, depicting Celestini in bed experiencing a double-vision of the Sacred Heart and the Gonzaga portrait (of which I locate just one copy: Galéria mesta Bratislavy, inv. no. C 1041).
The pamphlet closes with a list of witnesses who verified the miracle and with the text of the Latin decree of 3 June 1765 attesting to the veracity of the event.
The etching offered here is not located by OCLC, KVK, Omnia, or the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. The pamphlet is not located in the U.S. and is rare is European census.
* IT\ICCU\RMLE\051847; Tommaso Maria Termanini, Vita di Niccolo Luigi Celestini della Compagnia di Gesù (Rome: Alessandro Monaldi, 1839); Prodigiosa guarigione di Niccolo Celestini, novizio della Compagnia di Gesu operata dall’angelico giovine S. Luigi Gonzaga il giorno 10 febbraio 1765 (Rome: Tip. Guerra, 1865); Camillo Blasi, Lettere italiane aggiunte all’Antirretico in difesa della Dissertatione commonitoria dell’avvocato Camillo Blasi sopra l’adorazione, e la festa del cuore di Gesù (1772); Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, Holy Organ or Unholy Idol?: The Sacred Heart in the Art, Religion, and Politics of New Spain.