RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
146

of Bragança, Philip IV of Spain ruled Portugal as Philip III during the construction of the façade. Before him two other Philips had reigned over Spain and Portugal, beginning with Philip II, crowned Philip I of Portugal in 1580. Throughout most of this highly controversial historical period very large altarpieces in a classical style were being built in Spain and Portugal. The prime instance of late sixteenth-century classical altarpieces of huge dimensions is the massive main retable of the church of the Escorial.

It is rather frustrating that no known contemporary source actually establishes any sort of comparison between the frontispiece of St. Paul and these retables. Even in our days specialists have ignored the connection. The reason may be that the façade of St. Paul does not conform to known examples of retable-façades. Even in the largest surviving examples the actual retable configuration is contained within the elevation by various means, such as the large buttresses found in Santa Maria A Grande in Pontevedra. They indicate to the viewer that this is a simulated stone altarpiece cleverly applied to the front of the building for his or her admiration and astonishment. At St. Paul's there is no containment, no similar signalling to the beholder that its designer intended a metaphorical retable. Here the altarpiece simile seems to extend to the whole of the church's front. This fact would certainly make this façade unique, but would not necessarily exclude it from classification as a retable-façade.

Given the lack of primary sources that would justify such a classification one must largely rely on the visual evidence. The following section shows how an analysis of the façade's structure and of its iconography can lead to reasonable conclusions supporting this hypothesis.

Artists and Dates of Construction

Who the architect and artists of the surviving frontispiece were and when they built it is a question that has eluded scholars due to a lack of contemporary sources. These sources plainly state that the architect of the church was the Italian Jesuit Carlo Spinola and one can surmise that he drafted the design of the elevation, but no one really knows. Spinola died a martyr's death in 1622, before the construction of the façade.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
147

Work on it could only have started after the beatification of St. Francis Borgia at the end of 1624. His statue and that of St. Luís Gonzaga appear in niches on the second storey of the façade with pedestals only bearing the title beatus, not saints. Francis Borgia was only canonised in 1670 but had been beatified by Pope Urban VIII on the 23rd November 1624. Luis Gonzaga had already been beatified in 1605 (Figs 14.15).

The statues of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier also appear in the second storey and on their pedestals are given the correct title of saints. Both had been declared saints in 1622 with spectacular canonisation ceremonies in Rome, Spain and Portugal. We know from a 1644 Annual Letter written from the college in Macao that the façade was completed the year that this letter was dated. It seems therefore very probable that the frontispiece was constructed between 1625 and 1644 and that the impulse for its construction or reconstruction was very likely the canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier.

The initiative for founding the Macao College as the seat of the Japan missions, later expanded to include China, was due to Alessandro Valignano, the Father Superior and Father Visitor of the Jesuits in the East. As stated, the architect of the church was Father Carlo Spinola, an Italian from Naples. The reputed decoration of the façade at the hands of Chinese and Christian Japanese craftsmen was very likely carried out under the direction of Giovanni Nicolao, an Italian Jesuit painter from Nola. From this it is only too obvious that Italian Jesuits with a Late Renaissance mentality were highly influential in its creation, something characteristic of the historical period in question.

J.E. McCall, whose pioneering research is fundamental to the subject, has studied the activities of Giovanni Nicolao. Yoshitomo Okamoto, in his Namban Bijutsu, also gives important insights on Father Nicolao, who had actually opened a school of fine arts for young Japanese seminarians as apprentices in Western painting, printmaking and sculpture in various missionary colleges in Japan.19 But apart from Giacomo Niva, a Chinese-Japanese painter and the most brilliant of Nicolao's pupils, we hardly know the names of the other Chinese and Japanese artists who may have formed Nicolao's team in Macao. Unfortunately, this was apparently Jesuit practice at the time. Their famous annual letters sent from China or their Macao College, today
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
155

impressions and variations of this image circulated at the time in Europe; 26 the Jesuit fathers had actually been instrumental in introducing similar prints to the East. Apart from prints, Charles Boxer, amongst others, has remarked how the Portuguese had carried retablos with them to Japan.27 It therefore seems equally plausible that related altarpieces might have been present in the minds of the artists of the façade.

Besides the mentioned attributes, the unknown programmer of the decoration also incorporated themes from St John's Book of Revelation 12.1 and 12.3 (John 12.2 was by now conveniently glossed over in artistic representations of the theme), as well as from other sources.

Such a sophisticated and theological knowledge of Marian themes reveals the mind of a programmer ingenious enough to merit a few words. Although the identity of its author is unknown, Carlo Spinola, the architect of Madre de Deus and the artist Giovanni Nicolao, director of the art school in Japan, come immediately to mind. But I think one should also consider Dom Diogo Correa Valente as another possible candidate for authorship, mainly on account of the contents of his library in the College of St. Paul.28

The Jesuit Diogo Valente was the learned but controversial Bishop of Japan resident at the College of São Paulo from 1619 to 1624, years when the façade was probably being redesigned and its construction begun. In 1624 Dom Diogo had to leave for Goa in a hurry under the shadow of the violent quarrels that agitated Macao because members of his own order had apparently partisanly elected him as Bishop of the city. But he returned again as Bishop in 1630 and so remained until his death three years later. When he was buried in the chancel of the church of Madre de Deus the decoration of the frontispiece must have been in progress. However, this is a question that can only be settled by future research.

Symbolic Meaning

The interpretation of symbols relating to Mary (and the other images) is a fascinating but complex subject that cannot be discussed in detail here. However, it is worth considering some of those adorning the façade to get a sense of their poetic and mystical quality.
================================================================================