El Greco’s "Dream of Phi n Allegory of the Holy League Anthony Blunt Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 3, No. 1/2 (Oct., 1939 - Jan., 1940), 58-69, Stable URL: hitp://links,jstororg/sic?sici=007S-4390% 28 1939 10% 2F 194001 % 293%3A 1%2F2% 3CS8%3 AEG%220PI%3E2.0,CO%3B2-U Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes is currently published by The Warburg Institut. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstororg/about/terms.huml. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/www jstor.org/journals/warburg. hl, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Sat Ape 30 04:25:36 2005EL GRECO’S “DREAM OF PHILIP II”: AN ALLEGORY OF THE HOLY LEAGUE By Anthony Blunt t has long been realized that the title “The Dream of Philip IT” now usually given to El Greco’s painting in the Chapter House of the Escorial (Pl. 9) is inadequate to explain all the details of this elaborate composition. " Most recent writers! on the picture return to the name given in the earliest surviving account of the picture, in Los Santos’ Deseripcién Bree del Monasterio de. Lorenco el Real del Esoriah, published in 1657, where it is described as “the Adoration of the Holy Name of Jesus.”* But even this description does not fully explain the figures in the foreground, nor the curious episodes happening in various parts of the background.? Some years ago, however, the late General Stirling, the owner of the small version of the composition at Keir, suggested that the picture was essentially an allegory of the Holy League, formed by. the papacy, Venice and Spain against the Turk in 1571." It is the primary object of this article to work out this hypothesis, and to give it a solid foundation by a Comparison with other representations of allied subjects, and an analysis of the connexion between the theological and the historical themes in the ainting. a ea take first the theological side. The Adoration of the Holy Name of Jesus is an old tradition in the Christian church; but it gained particular prominence in the 15th century through St. Bernardino of Siena, who used to hold up a tablet with the monogram IHS while he was preaching.* ‘The Confraternity of the Most Holy Name of God and of Jesus was founded as a part of the Dominican order and flourished in the 16th century, when it was encouraged by Pius IV and Pius V.*. The Name of Jesus was naturally one of the central objects of worship among the Jesuits, since their order was in a sense dedicated to it.” It was also held in'great esteem in Spain, where the theologian Luis de Granada devoted to it his sermons and meditations on the feast of the Circumcision, the day on which Christ received the name of Jesus.* 1E.g. Mayer, El Greco, 1926, p. 62 {5 Kehrer, in Kunst und Kunstler, XX1, p. 549 & Another version of the painting existed in the Lazaro collection, Madrid, in which the monogram of the name of Jesus was replaced by a group with the Holy Trinity and the Coronation of the Virgin. Cl. Mayer, op. city p. 23, + Other explanations have been put for- ward to explain these details, but ‘none of them is wholly satisfactory.» Mayer deseribes iv as a combination of the worship of the name of Jesus with a representation of All Saints (el: Durer’ painting in Vienna) and 2 Last Judgment. "Op. cit, p. 21. Byron and TalbotRice in The Birth of Wester Painting, 1930, note on plate 73, also support the Last Judgment theory. Kebrer, op. cit, suggests “that it. isan allegory of the Tnguisition ‘Tam very grateful to Mrs. Stning and to Mr. Waterhouse for allowing me to sce the correspondance of the General Stirling ‘with the latter on this question $f. Catholic Encyclopaedia, I, p. 505 * Gf Beringer, Die Ablase, 1) 1922, P. 77; and Colvenerius, Litwrgia Marian, in. Bou- rassé, Suna Aurea, I, p. 686 ft. * Gf. Bollandus, lmago primi secu, passin; Male, Lar religiew apres le Concile de Trent, 1932, p. 431 ih; Knipping, De Teonografe can de Contra Beformate in de Nederlander, 1, 1939, P. 148. farce in the 16th century another 58