A Question of Tradition: Catholic Reformers on Gregory the Great’s Beard

Abstract

This article investigates the ideological implications of Pope Gregory the Great's beard for Catholic reformers of the sixteenth century . It argues that the portrayal of Gregory as clean-shaven, with a "moderate" beard, or with a long bushy beard (all representations that are to be found in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Roman art and scholarship) take us to the heart of interlocking Catholic Reform debates on the "Romanness" of the Roman church and the vexed question of how to evaluate late antique and medieval Christian tradition for the Christian present .Under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII (r . 1572-85), the late antique apse mosaic of SS . Cosma e Damiano on the Forum Romanum was restored . 1 In a heavy-handed intervention, the damaged figure of Pope Felix IV (r . 526-30), responsible for the church's construction, was replaced by a representation of Pope Gregory the Great (r . 590-604) . 2 The resulting composition is depicted in contemporary drawings of the mosaic, such as one by Alfonso Chacón (d . 1599) (fig . 1) . There, Pope Gregory appears wearing a papal tiara, clutching a gospel book and key and sporting a long bushy beard . 3 (A century later, under Pope Alexander VII, the mosaic was again "restored," removing Gregory the Great and returning a new Felix IV to the composition, where he remains to this day . )What's in a beard? In the last few decades, historians of medieval and early modern Europe have become increasingly attentive to the cultural implications of facial hair . 4 In this article, I demonstrate how and why Gregory the Great's 1