African Ambassadors in the Frescoes of the Quirinal Palace

Abstract

In 1615, Pope Paul V intervened in the redecoration of the newly expanded papal palace on the Quirinal. The pope made changes to the projected fresco decorations of one of the palace’s major ceremonial sale — specifi cally, he ordered the prominent depiction of non-European ambassadors in the room’s decorative scheme. The iconography of exotic ambassadors coming to pay homage to the pope in the context of a suite used for audiences and diplomatic receptions would become a prominent motif in Baroque art, and a crucial component of European sovereign’s claims to global authority (most prominently, in the Escalier des Ambassadeurs in Versailles). This paper focuses on the frescoes’ depictions of Africans — which celebrate diplomatic contacts with Ethiopa and Kongo — and examines them in the context of diplomatic rituals, traditions of representing “exotic” foreigners in the papal court, and of the papacy’s developing diplomatic and missionary concerns in the 1610s.