A newly-discovered sixteenth century rosary telling the story of creation and the early ages of man. Only the second known example of such an extraordinary devotional object, the Boncompagni Rosary features two miniature globes. These celestial and terrestrial spheres, bearing many of the hallmarks of contemporary cartography and astronomy, are part of a globe-making tradition that spanned Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally commissioned by one of Italy’s leading noble families, the rosary is now offered for the first time in over four centuries.

François Demongenet

François Demongenet was a French physicist and geographer active in Vesoul in eastern France during mid- and late-sixteenth century. He is best known for a set of terrestrial and celestial globe gores made in 1552. These gores were distributed throughout Europe, particularly through Italian printing houses, and used as a model for numerous miniature globes during the sixteenth century.

It appears that the Demogenet family counted some esteemed figures among its later members, including an advisor to King Louis XIV and several military commanders. François’ cartographic legacy, however, was continued only by the various European globemakers inspired by his gores, as exemplified by the first and second bead on the present rosary.

Antonio Spano

Antonio Spano was an Italian artist from the town of Tropea in Calabria, styling himself Antonio Spano Tropiensis on some occasions. His presence in Naples in 1575 is evidenced by records of his appearance in court for failure to marry his betrothed, which he did the following year. At some point in the following decade, Spano travelled to Madrid to work as a sculptor in the decorating of the recently completed El Escorial, a contract he had secured through his master and father-in-law, Marco de Pino.

The earliest dated known work by Spano is an ivory globe held by the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, inscribed near the South Pole: "Antonius Spano tropiensis facie 1593”, by which time he was already enjoying the patronage of Philip II of Spain. Spano was granted a pension by Philip until his death in 1615, at which time it was passed onto his son, Francisco, and continued under Philip III.

Although investigations into Spano’s contributions to El Escorial have been made, and one painting briefly attributed to him, his known artistic output has thus far been limited to the globe of 1593 and an ivory rosary owned by Jacob Fugger, Bishop of Constance in the early seventeenth century, which has the attribution 'Antonius Spanus Tropien incidebat' on the celestial globe. As discussed below, the present rosary is in many ways very similar to the Constance prayer beads, but shows several small but significant variations, from spelling to cartography, which raises an interesting question about its attribution.

The Rosary

The rosary, or prayer beads, have been used by Christians as early as the Desert Fathers, the hermits who lived in the Egyptian deserts and used string tied in knots to keep track of their prayers. While the style changed significantly across the ensuing millennia, the principle and the form has remained essentially the same: with the beads, knots or notches keeping count of one’s prayers, the mind is free to meditate fully on the mysteries of God. They are typically arranged with ten beads to represent a ‘decade’ of Aves (Hail Mary), with each decade preceded by a Pater Noster (Lord’s Prayer) and followed by a Gloria Patri (Glory Be).

This pattern is often repeated five or 15 times to create a much longer rosary, although single-decade rosaries are also used. Historically, they even proved popular during times of Catholic persecution, where they could be concealed more effectively than a string of 60 or more beads! Although the Catholics of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain certainly faced no persecution, the present example is a single-decade rosary, formed of a cross patonce and 11 beads, representing the decade of Aves and one Pater Noster.

The cross and beads that make up the present rosary are intricately engraved with Biblical images. Quotations from the Latin Vulgate Bible are inscribed upon each bead, most often around the lower pole, which serve to caption the scenes depicted.

The engravings on this rosary are near-identical to those found on Spano’s rosary made for Bishop Fugger, which are described by Küffner as ‘depictions from the prophecies of the Holy Saturday liturgy: Creation of the World, Fall of Man, Noah's Ark and Other Old Testament Scenes’. The present beads display the same scenes taken from a selection of Old Testament books; the quotations used are from the same verses, albeit with various strange errors; and the illustrations and stylistic elements differ slightly from the Fugger rosary. Likewise, the cross is more elaborate here, and all elements connected by a chain rather than by wire links. The details of each element of the rosary are as follows:

The Cross –

A patonce cross (300 x 300mm) with each arm terminating in three floriated points, with an engraving of two figures encircled by the words of Francis of Assisi: tu es pastor ovium. tu es vas electionis (“you are the pastor of the flock. You are the vessel of the election”). The first refers to Jesus Christ and the second to the apostle St Paul, revealing the identity of the men. On the four arms of the cross are four further male figures seated at desks, representing the Church fathers: Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Pope Gregory I. The back of the cross has at its centre a tree, with the circular caption reading: "egredietur virga de radice Jesse" ("a rod will come from the stem of Jesse" - Isaiah 11:1). On the four arms are the four evangelists, each seated beside scrolls or paper, and each accompanied by the living creature with whom he is symbolically associated: Matthew with man, Mark the lion, Luke the Calf and John the Eagle. The edges of the cross are engraved with designs including a ladder, perhaps a reference to Jacob’s dream of a stairway to heaven (Genesis 28:12), and a cross.

Bead 1: Genesis 1:1 –

The first and largest bead of the rosary (270mm diameter) is a miniature celestial globe, reflecting the opening words of the Latin Vulgate Bible: “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (‘In the beginning God created the heavens’ - Genesis 1:1). Indeed, these words are written in the southern hemisphere besides the Argo Navis (Ship) constellation. The globe is filled with these constellations, illustrated and labelled in Latin, and it also bears the celestial equator and ecliptic. They are viewed in reverse of how they are seen from earth, as if to provide God’s external view, looking in at the heavens from without.

The astronomy for the first bead is taken from the celestial globe of François Demongenet. Certain details, such as the male figure seated on the Eridanus constellation, indicates that the design was taken not from the very first edition of Demongenet’s globe, but from one of the numerous later states.

Bead 2: Genesis 1:6 –

Following the celestial sphere is a bead engraved to form a tiny terrestrial globe (240mm diameter). Written in the Antarctic circle is the verse: “dixit quoque Deus: fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum: et dividat aquas” (‘And so God said, “Let there be a firmament in the middle of the waters and divide them”’ - Genesis 1:6). The globe has been engraved with impressive detail for such a small sphere, with several countries and seas labelled by name. It is different to Spano’s later globe of 1593, which took its cartography from Mario Cataro’s globe of 1577, and displays notable cartographical advances compared to earlier globes of the sixteenth century such as the Lenox Globe.

Again, the cartography is taken from Demongenet’s influential globe. Based on the world maps of Gerard Mercator, his terrestrial gores were themselves influenced by Gemma Frisius, who had produced an important globe in 1536. Frisius’ cartography appears to have been transmitted to Demogenet through Georg Hartmann’s terrestrial globe gores of 1547.

At least six different variants of Demongenet’s terrestrial gores are known to exist, which can generally be identified through the spelling of the name for Japan: Sipannge, Suango, Sipangi or Sipange. This globe, however, has Sipango, which appeared on Frisius’ original 1536 globe; whether the change here was intentional or a misreading of the source material is unclear.

Notably cartographic features include several fictitious islands given, and large landmasses at both poles, the northern marked “Groenlandia” and attached to Northern Russia, the southern continent marked “Terra Incognita”, with a large bulge where Europeans would find Australia the following century. America displays the distinct Verrazzano-shape to North America, so-named for the early Italian explorer, who made an expedition to the New World in 1524. Looking in at the waters of the Outer Banks from his ship, La Dauphine, Verrazzano concluded that they must be the Pacific. Thus on the map published after the ship's return to Europe, and thenceforth on many maps and globes of the subsequent century, North America appears as a long, narrow isthmus, almost divided in two except for a narrow stretch of land.

While the globe bead of the Constance rosary is near-identical in cartographic terms, there are several notable differences: while Bishop Fugger’s rosary presents more illustrative details such as sea-monsters, the engraving is more heavy-handed and geographical details such as the shape of the Yucatan peninsula are less accurate than on the present globe. Interestingly, however, this globe has occasional spelling mistakes and mis-quotations in Latin. The caption ‘devicat anno 1530’ in America is a mistaken interpretation of Demongenet’s ‘devicta anno 1530’, which first appeared on Frisius’ globes, and is engraved correctly on Spano’s prayer beads for Bishop Fugger. Likewise the ghost islands in the southern Indian Ocean are also strangely rendered with spellings seen on neither any other Demogenet-inspired globes, nor the Constance rosary.

These errors, compiled with others found in the Latin engravings across the entire rosary, indicate that the present designs were executed by a different hand than the Fugger rosary, and that language may not have been the engraver’s forte!

Bead 3: Genesis 1:11 –

The third bead on the rosary (220mm diameter) shows a rugged natural landscape comprised of rolling hills covered in rivers, streams, trees and bushes. The circular text around the lower pole provides a continuation of the creation story: “et protulit terra herbam virentem, et facientem semen juxta genus suum, lignumque faciens fructum, et habens” (‘and the land brought forth vegetation, yielding seed of its own kind, and the tree bearing fruit and having...’ - Genesis 1:11).

Bead 4: Genesis 1:16 –

Following the creation of the earth and its greenery, the fourth bead (210mm diameter) depicts the creation of sun, moon and stars: “fecitque Deus duo luminaria magna: luminare maius, ut praeesset diei: et luminare minus, ut praeesset nocti: et stellas” (‘and God made two great lights: the larger light to preside over the day, and the smaller light to preside over night; and the stars’ - Genesis 1:16). The scene engraved on the bead looks out on an ocean from a wooded hillside, the sun, moon and stars all visible in the vast sky at once.

Bead 5: Genesis 1:25 –

The rosary’s fifth bead (200mm diameter) illustrates God’s creation of animals on earth, with charming details including elephants, a rhinoceros, various birds, tortoises, giraffes and sea-creatures. The text around the lower pole reads: “et fecit Deus bestias terrae juxta species suas” (‘and God made the beasts of the land, each according to its kind’ - Genesis 1:25). Bizarrely, Spano has added the word “prophetia” (prophecy) to the end of his phrase, a word neither found in the Vulgate Latin Bible nor making sense. This is another example of several such instances of strange errors, additions and changes in Latin.

Bead 6: Genesis 1:27 –

Another instance is found on bead six (200mm diameter), on which the text surrounding the lower pole reads: “et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem suam dies sextus”. The canonical Biblical verse has only: et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam (‘and God made man in his image’ - Genesis 1:27). The addition here of “et similitudinem suam” refers back to God’s speech in Genesis 1:26 (faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram - 'I will make man according to my image and likeness') while “dies sextus” does not appear until Genesis 1:31, when the ‘sixth day’ is complete. Bizarrely, comparing this inscription to Spano’s rosary for Bishop Fugger offers no further insight, as that also displays an erroneous inscription, placing the creation of man on the fifth day!

The scene on the bead is set in the Garden of Eden. First, Adam is shown lying on the ground with Eve growing out of his side, extending her arms towards a large fog probably representing the breath of life. Next is shown Eve’s temptation by the serpent, as she reaches to pluck fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Finally, an angel is shown pursuing the two humans out of Eden after God discovered their disobedience.

Bead 7: Genesis 2:2 –

"Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat: et requievit” (‘and on the seventh day God finished the work which he had done, and he rested’ - Genesis 2:2). The seventh bead (190mm diameter) on the rosary interprets the final day of creation, God’s sabbath. The earth already shows signs of civilization, with buildings of various sizes constructed on the sea shore, and boats on the water. On the other side of the bead is an engraving of the trinity in a star-studded heaven. The Father and Son are seated and holding between them an open book bearing the letters alpha and omega, the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet, in reference to the Lord’s statement in the final book of the Bible: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega' (Revelation 1:8). Above them flies the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

Bead 8: Genesis 7:5 –

The eighth bead (170mm diameter) displays the damage that time can reap on even the most durable of materials. Much of the text is near-indecipherable, but the few discernable Latin words allow the inscribed verse to be identified as: “fecit ergo Noe omnia quae mandaverat ei Dominus” ('Therefore Noah did everything that God had ordered him' - Genesis 7:5). On the less-damaged side of the bead can be seen the great ark, with Noah’s family and the assorted animals waiting to get on board. The other side may perhaps show the colossal rains beginning to fall from heaven.

Bead 9 –

Bead nine (170mm diameter) strays from the chronology set up by the earlier beads. The first scene shows Moses leading the fleeing Israelites from Egypt through the Red Sea; they stand gathered on the shores as the prophet follows God’s instruction: “extende manum tuam super mare” (‘Extend your hand over the sea’ - Exodus 14:16). Then, however, the story seems to skip 20 books to the Book of Isaiah, from which the two other quotations around the base of the bead are taken:

“apprehendent septem mulieres virum unum” (‘seven women will take hold of one man’ - Isaiah 4:1) and “audite, audientes me, et comedite bonum” (‘listen, my listeners, and eat what is good’ - Isaiah 55:2). Furthermore, the second scene shows Isaiah seated on a rock before five men, with a banner extending from his hand into the air reading: “omnes sitientes, venite ad aquas” ('All those who thirst, come to the waters' - Isaiah 55:1). In effect, the Latin appears to be written backwards and the words flow upwards, as if from the prophet's mouth.

There are well-established links between the Book of Exodus and the Book of Isaiah, both of which contain an exodus narrative, the first from captivity in Egypt to the Holy Land, and the second from captivity in Babylon back to Jerusalem. It is not entirely clear, however, why these particular quotations and scene were chosen to ornament the ninth bead of his rosary.

Bead 10 –

The Biblical references chosen for the tenth bead (150mm diameter) are also something of an enigma. Apart from the obvious themes of God and worship, the scenes do not seem to share an obvious link or connection.

The verse from the second book of laws, which is canonically tollite librum istum, et ponite eum in latere arcae ('take this book and put it in the side of the ark' - Deuteronomy 31:26), is here shortened to “tollite librum hunc, et ponite in arcam”. Although the corresponding illustration is corrupted by damage to the ivory, it is possible to make out the Levite priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant through the desert.

The canonical crediderunt viri Ninivitae in Deum, et praedicaverunt jejunium, et vestiti sunt saccis (‘the Ninevites believed in God and proclaimed a fast, and wore sackcloth’ - Jonah 3:5) has also been abbreviated to read: “crediderunt...Ninivitae... et vestiti sunt saccis”. Again the image has been worn away, but the city of Nineveh can be distinguished on a cliff overlooking the sea. In this case, the maker seems to have confused his stories. The prophet Jonah was ordered by God to go to the inland city of Nineveh to preach (Jonah 1:1) but instead went to the port at Joppa and boarded the boat that led him to the mouth of the famous whale (Jonah 1:17).

The third quotation appears as it does in the Bible: “Nabuchodonosor rex fecit statuam auream” (‘King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue’ - Daniel 3:1). This line begins the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue of gold, which his Jewish advisors refused to worship. For this slight, he ordered them to be burned alive, a punishment from which the Lord saved them (Daniel 3:28). The corresponding scene on the bead shows the king’s statue, which appears to be of a woman and, interestingly, to have been erected on cliffs overlooking the sea. The sentence from which the quotation is taken actually ends by naming the statue’s location as “the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon”, making the insistence on depicting the scenes in coastal settings strange.

Bead 11 –

The eleventh and final bead on the rosary (140mm diameter) also bears three Old Testament scenes, once more taken from disparate books.

Chronologically, the first scene shows six Israelites, wearing wildly anachronous hats, standing around a fire pit roasting an animal. It is captioned with the verse: “et edent carnes festinanter illa assas igni” (‘And they will hurriedly eat meat roasted on the fire’). The original adverb ‘nocte’ (‘by night’ - Exodus 12:8) has been replaced with ‘festinanter’ (‘hurriedly’). A few verses later, in Exodus 12:11, God does tell Moses that the Israelites will eat ‘festinanter’, but it is not apparent why the artist has chosen to substitute the word here. It is also interesting that he seems to have set the scene in the desert, as if after the flight from Egypt, when in reality God is explaining the Passover feast, which is held before the Israelites fled to the sands of Sinai.

The next scene shows Ezekiel’s vision of himself in the Valley of Dry Bones, during which the bones of the dead are brought to life once more, symbolizing both the resurrection of the dead and the restoration of the house of Israel after the Bablyonian captivity. The caption describes the prophet’s vision: et accesserunt ossa ad ossa, unumquodque ad iuncturam suam (‘They came together, bone to bone, each to its own joint’ - Ezekiel 37:7). There is also a speech banner on the illustration, showing Ezekiel to be addressing the bones: ossa, audite verbum Domini ('bones, hear the word of God' - Ezekiel 37:4), although an adjective found in the original verse has been omitted.

The third quotation around the lower pole reads: “post haec super terram visus est et cuas hom”..., an interpretation of the verse: post haec in terris visus est, et cum hominibus conversatus est (‘After this he was seen on earth, and conversed with men’ - Baruch 3:38). While the truncation of the quotation can be attributed to lack of space, the decision to replace the canonical ‘in terris’ (‘on the earth’) with ‘super terram’ (‘above the earth’) is inexplicable, especially with its theological implications.

The scene shown above the verse depicts Baruch seated in front of a small audience (Baruch 1:3), a banner extending from his mouth reading: “sed qui ?os novit sapientiam”. This quotation cannot be found, either complete or paraphrased, in the Vulgate Latin Bible. The closest verse, semantically and linguistically, is: sed qui scit universa novit eam, et adinvenit eam prudentia ('but he who knows [knowledge] knows all things, and found her through his own wisdom...' - Baruch 3:32), with ‘sapitentiam’ potentially serving as a synonym for ‘prudentia’.

Provenance and Rarity

The only known rosary that can be definitively attributed to Antonio Spano is held in the Cathedral of Constance, having been owned by, and likely made for, Jacob Fugger, Bishop of Constance (1604-1626), a scion of the extraordinarily wealthy banking family. “The Fugger family were among the largest book collectors in central Europe of the sixteenth century. Holdings from the Fuggers’s collections are now among the treasured possessions of the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the Austrian National Library in Vienna, and the Vatican Library in Rome … The Fugger libraries were investments in education and learning; they represent the progressive turn of the family, which had become wealthy in commerce, towards learned and literary interests” (Haberlein).

The original owners of the present rosary may have been another wealthy and prominent family: the Boncompagni, from which hailed a number of historic figures, including numerous bishops, cardinals and Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585). When the family migrated from Saxony to Italy in the tenth century, they changed their name from the Germanic Dragon von Saxon to Boncompagni, meaning 'good friend'. Nonetheless, later records indicate an attempt to honour their true name with the addition of 'Dragoni'. It is unsurprising, then, that the family symbol is a dragon.

The celestial globe that forms the first bead of this rosary displays two coats of arms; one is certainly the Boncompagni dragon, and the other perhaps a lion rampant. Notably, the former shows only the dragon on a decorative shield, not combined with the three stripes that characterise the coat of arms of the famous Boncompagni-Ludovisi branch of the family formed later.

Among the most prominent members of the family was Giacomo Boncompagni (1548-1612), the illegitimate son of Gregory XIII and a great patron of the arts, who sponsored many artists, writers and composers. In 1575, King Philip II of Spain, who was also Spano’s patron, named Giacomo commander-in-chief of the Spanish armies in Lombardy and Piedmont. His wife, Constanza Sforza, was the daughter of the Count of Santa Fiora, whose coat of arms displays a lion rampant holding a quince. These facts all point to Giacomo Boncompagni as the original owner, and perhaps commissioner, of this rosary.

Whether the rosary was made for Boncompagni by Spano himself or a different artist, it is not clear; nor is it obvious whether, if Spano, these beads preceded or followed the Fugger rosary. What is evident is that one undoubtedly informed the other, and given that the mistakes in the Latin found on the present rosary are, in general, not found on that in Constance, it seems most likely that that latter was made after the former, replicating its design and correcting (most of!) the inscriptions.

It may therefore be the case that it was made for Giacomo Boncompagni, and that it went with the Italian to Madrid during one of his visits to his patron there. Present at Philip’s court was Antonio Spano and, on occasion, representatives of the Fugger family, with whom the Spanish king held numerous financial contracts. And so it may have come about that Spano was commissioned to make a similar rosary for the Jacob Fugger who would later become Bishop of Constance, correcting the erroneous Latin as he did so.

Scientific Analysis

Extensive laboratory examination of the Boncompagni Rosary has “confirmed the rosary’s material as an animal product consisting of the mineral hydroxyapatite, thus ivory, tusk, bone or tooth. Microscopic examination “included visual study for surface features that might complement the results of the material analysis. However, no features characteristic of particular types of material were noted - no Schreger lines (features characteristic of elephant ivory), dentine rings (characteristic of killer or sperm whale), secondary dentine or cementum rings (characteristic of walrus) or other identifying features were observed... Only bone can be ruled out, due to the lack of visible pore structure present on the surface of the bead.

“The radiocarbon date of the sample material removed from the bead was determined as 512 years b.p. ±26 years. After calibration, this yielded a date range of 1397-1446 CE at 95.4% probability. It is important to note that the dates determined by this technique correspond to the age of the animal from which it was taken when the material was formed; that is, for example, elephant tusks are formed over the lifetime of the animal, in rings, similar to how a tree grows in rings. Material from different locations from a single tusk taken from an elephant of significant age will have different ages; each of which will represent the year/s in which that material was produced by the animal, as a measure of the atmospheric carbon imbibed in those year/s. Equally, such materials will undergo wear during an animal’s lifetime. As noted, the type of animal the material originates from could not be determined.

“In consideration of these factors, it may be suggested that the material could have first been available for use either:
• At the earliest, not much before circa 1400, if 3 years are added to the earliest date of 1397 under the assumption that some time for trade and supply of the material to the craftsman should be added.
• At the latest, not much after circa 1449 (again adding 3 years to the latest date in the range, 1446).

“It should also be noted that radiocarbon dating cannot provide information regarding the date in which a material was actually worked, only the dates after which it would have been available. Thus, given the data obtained, we may say that the bead may plausibly have been carved from the 15th century onwards.”

Having been in private hands for over four centuries, the Boncompagni Rosary is a new discovery that contributes not only to Spano’s extant body of work, but also to the understanding of late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century devotional objects.