The gods also promote tempered violence - Allegory of the power of Philip III of Spain

Etching and engraving, 1603, signed and dated at lower left F. Villamena Fecibat 1603.

A very rare propaganda engraving, showing the allegory of the power of Philip III of Spain.

“Philip III at the beginning of his rule when, in collaboration with his favorite, the Duke of Lerma, he was seeking to construct a self-image which distanced him from his unpopular father. Hence moderate justice is the message of the chalcographic print Vim temperatam dii quoque promovent (The gods also promote tempered violence), designed by Francesco Villamena and issued in Rome to promote the figure of the young Spanish monarch. The print is an excellent example of the musical metaphor of good governance operating at maximum ideological force. The composition shows the king’s bust in a medallion presiding over the scene and framed by the inscription PHILIPPUS D. G. SPANIAR. ET INDIANAR. REX III. In the centre of what resembles a majestic palatial hall stands a table covered with a cloth with the title of the print, a sentence that derives from Horace’s verse vim temperatam di quoque provehunt. The table has an obvious symbolic value related to the idea of majesty and state. On top of it, a spear (representing the justified violence of the state) rests on top of a viola (representing harmony, temperance or mercy). The motto explains the meaning of the image: good government consists of justice tempered by mercy (which implies political action based on equity).

Moreover, the musical metaphor now has a huge geopolitical scope. Guarding the table are two gallant warriors: these are the personifications of the West and the East Indies, the edges of Philip’s empire. They have defeated two monstrous creatures who lay, fallen, on the staircase: the one on the left, with eyes around his head, resembles the mythical Argos, defeated and killed by Mercury, and the one on the right, with three heads, could allude to Geryon, defeated by Hercules (the adopted Spanish hero par excellence and allegedly the legendary ancestor of the Habsburgs). These are perhaps representations of idolatry or paganism. Around them, fifty female figures represent the states of the Hispanic monarchy with the symbols and attributes that identify them. For example, Galicia (in the background) carries a church in her hand; in front of her, Granada, crowned with fruits, shows a pair of doves and three interlocked rings. Naples holds the cornucopia and wears winged sandals. Next to her, the kingdom of Sicily displays the armillary sphere, as this place was renowned for the study of astronomy and cartography. On the let edge, Portugal stands dressed as a warrior, and an old woman sitting on the floor in meditation, with a serpent coiled around her arm, represents Cantabria, or perhaps Bizkaia. At the forefront are Castille and Seville. the personifications of the Canary Islands, Milan and the Low Countries are also present.

The authors of the book Los Austrias: grabados de la Biblioteca nacional (1993) suggest that this image, engraved in Rome in 1603, when the Duke of Escalona had just become the new Spanish ambassador to the Pope, could express papal fears about the new king’s allegedly expansionist policies. However, there is little historical evidence for this aggressive policy, and I believe that the print was aimed at a domestic, Spanish audience: Philip wanted to appear as an equitable monarch who supported the constitutional individuality of all the different territories of the Spanish crown; unlike his father, he did not want to be perceived as a Castillian-based, authoritarian, inaccessible sovereign. As A. Feros indicates in Kingship and Favoritism, Philip II’s use of Castilian taxes to subsidize military campaigns in the Low Countries and France had created an atmosphere of deepseated and dangerous constitutional crisis affecting the king’s relations with his various kingdoms and members of the political elite. Many expressed the hope that the new king would reinstate traditional forms of monarchical government such as the power of the councils. In these circumstances, Philip III and Lerma initiated what appeared to be a comprehensive programme of political reforms soon after taking office, which included the abolition of the ‘juntas’ – including the Junta de Gobierno – and the re-staffing of the Council of State. The new monarch declared himself to be a just, merciful and liberal king, who was concerned, unlike his father, not with extending royal power but with regaining the love, obedience and respect of his subjects. To prove himself a merciful king, Philip III elected to pardon all who had been punished by his father for their participation in the Aragonese disturbances of 1591. The print Vim temperate dii quoque promovent is clearly propaganda, but it also presents an ideal which the new king tried to live up to” (cf. Sara Gonzalez, The Musical Iconography of Power in Seventeenth-Century Spain and her Territories, pp. 115-118).

Magnificent proof, richly toned, printed on contemporary laid paper "shield with kneeling saint and cross" (Briquet 7268, indicates it as paper produced in Fabriano around 1602), with very thin margins, very slight traces of glue and vertical creases visible on the reverse, otherwise in excellent condition.

Collection signature on the verso: Claude-Augustin Mariette 1690 (Lugt 1786).

The work is of great rarity; in addition to the copy at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid published in Sara Gonzalez's essay, we have surveyed the copy at the Albertina in Vienna. 

https://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=search=/record/objectnumbersearch=[It/I/41/72]&showtype=record

Bibliografia

Le Blanc C., Manuel de L'amateur D'estampes, n. 58; Sara Gonzalez, The Musical Iconography of Power in Seventeenth-Century Spain and her Territories in “Political and Popular Culture in the Early Modern Period” (2015), pp. 115-118, fig. 6.4; E. Páez, Los Austrias: grabados de la Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional-Ministerio de Cultura y Julio Ollero, Editor, S. A., 1993).