ABSTRACT
On 30 January 1608 the Oratorian Fathers held a meeting of the Congregazione Generale. Proceedings logged in the Decreti record their deliberations regarding the high altarpiece for the Chiesa Nuova, including the above entry. One and half years earlier the Oratorian Fathers had commissioned Peter Paul Rubens to execute what was to be his first of two high altarpieces for the Vallicella. The Oratoriani voted to accept the artist's offer to remake his first altarpiece, completed six months earlier late in the summer of 1607 but rejected by the Congregation. They also specified that his redo of Version 1 would alter aspects of the upper half of the original composition which "had not pleased", though the Congregation had not voted unanimously. This chapter offers a revisionist account of Peter Paul Rubens' notorious Chiesa Nuova altarpiece commission as an example of Beati moderni cultic altar imagery and personated portraiture, which also provides a case study of Oratorian self-censorship.
