Writing the Cappella Gregoriana: Architecture and Ekphrasis in the First Baroque Chapel

This volume publishes for the first time Lorenzo Frizolio's Sacellum Gregorianum (Rome, 1582), Ascanio Valentino's Sacellum Gregorianum (Rome, 1583) and Robert Turner's Panegyrici sermones duo (Ingolstadt, 1583). These three Neo-Latin verse and prose works describe the first monumental Baroque chapel, the Cappella Gregoriana in St. Peter's in Rome, which was built in 1580 by Pope Gregory XIII. The chapel famously holds the relics of the theologian, poet and saint, Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330 - c. 389), whose elaborate and classically inspired procession to the mausoleum was recorded by the three Renaissance writers of this book.

In over 500 Virgilian hexameters, Lorenzo Frizolio refashioned the chapel in words, itemising its sculptures, marbles, and mosaics from floor to dome. Ascanio Valentino was then prompted to offer a prose parallel which analysed with meticulous detail and crafted rhetoric the chapel's furnishings and technologies. Lastly, Robert Turner wrote a detailed description of the relics. These three texts are accompanied by translations and commentaries, as well as individual introductions explaining the historical context.