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Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence
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Description
This tapestry is part of a set of the lives of Saint Peter and Saint Paul that was acquired before 1557 by Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga (1505–1563). It replicates, with some variations, the set made for Pope Leo X between 1516 and 1521. The Leonine set was woven in the workshop of Pieter van Edingen, called van Aelst (1450–1533). No other weavings are recorded during van Aelst's life, but at least four high-quality reproductions were produced during the succeeding thirty years. Francis I, king of France, acquired a set during the early 1530s (destroyed in Paris in 1797) and Henry VIII acquired a set in 1542 (destroyed in Berlin in 1945). The other sets were woven in the late 1540s or 1550s; one for an unidentified member of the Habsburg family (now in the Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid), the other for Ercole Gonzaga.
Ercole Gonzaga patronized workshops in Mantua and purchased high-quality tapestries from Brussels. The circumstances in which this set was acquired are unknown, but it was certainly before 1557. During the 1550s Ercole had hopes of the papal crown, and he just missed election at the 1559 conclave. The Acts of the Apostles set would have represented the power designated to him as cardinal by the pope and, further, would have coincided with his papal aspirations.
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