Francisco Pacheco and the Arte de la Pintura: Contributions to Post-Tridentine Trinitarian Iconography in the Hispanic World
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Abstract
The paper provides an overview of the figure of Francisco Pacheco within the cultural context of early modern Spain, highlighting his role in shaping the artistic sensibility of the Spanish Golden Age and his function as a mediator between humanistic knowledge, workshop practice, and the regulation of sacred imagery. In particular, the article focuses on the author’s most significant work, Arte de la Pintura, examining its sources, historical context, and internal structure. The treatise emerges as a work capable of integrating post-Tridentine doctrinal concerns and of reworking, in a simplified yet operationally effective manner for its intended audience of artists, the reflections of Gabriele Paleotti and Johannes Molanus within a coherent normative framework aimed at the education and regulation of painting practice. The concluding section examines Pacheco’s prescriptions for the representation of the Holy Trinity, reconstructing the models, formal criteria, and iconographic limits he proposed to ensure both theological clarity and visual decorum, and illustrating these guidelines with images pertinent to the iconographic themes discussed, drawn from preceding, contemporary, and subsequent contexts, both European and Ibero-American.
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