Federico Borromeo as a Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy ca. 1600

Federico Borromeo's Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan is one of the great small museums in Italy. Together with Italian Renaissance paintings and drawings, it contains a group of Flemish landscapes and still lifes noteworthy for both their number and quality. Borromeo founded his museum in order to teach students in his art academy how to reform religious art. The function of the Italian istorie in this context is obvious, but that of the landscapes and still lifes has eluded scholars. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Borromeo found religious meaning in his landscapes and still lifes, thus making them suitable models for reformers of sacred art. His interpretation of paintings of nature was linked to his theology, a form of Christian optimism characteristic of Italian thought around 1600, and shared by his colleagues Roberto Bellarmino and Filippo Neri.