 Thank you to Dr. Hall, also to Dr. Tracy Cooper. I'd like to also thank Tristan Beddingen at the Biblioteca Arziona, and finally, Todd Marder, who came on this journey to find these frescoes with me. Ambitions certainly defined the 13-year pontificate of the Bollinier's Pope Gregory XIII Boncampagne. From 1572 to 1585, he accomplished an unrivaled global agenda and contributed to one of the most comprehensive and large-scale artistic interventions in the Apostolic Palace. Numerous studies have shed light on individual components of his patronage, but one project has almost entirely vanished from the historiography. A series of images dedicated to the life of St. Peter adorning every staircase in the palace. My talk today focuses on these forgotten images. First, I will establish the commission's chronology, which was subtly added to Giorgio Vazzari's workload for the Salareggia. Ironically, Vazzari does not deserve full credit for this commission, rather it is the Bollinier's artist Lorenzo Sabattini who executed the majority of the images and an unpublished biography of Gregory XIII from the Vatican Library confirms this. Recuperating the significance of the stairs program within the larger context of Gregory's commissions highlights the cohesion between his concurrent projects and reveals that a number of his papal medals bore the exact same imagery. Moreover, the stairs program makes striking connections to previous papal commissions. We find that both Pius IV Medici and Paul III Farnese use the same imagery in their respective commissions. This allows us to analyze what I am calling the symbolic stakes of papal patronage. Borrowing from Pierre Bourdieu's theories on cultural capital, I will end with a discussion on how the stairs program demonstrates a clear strategy for extending papal cultural capital and the sophisticated way papal commissions inherited, acquired, and leveraged the symbolic efficacy of their predecessors for new purposes. Between the payment records for the papal secret treasury now housed at the Roman State Archives and Giorgio Vasari's letters, a timeline emerges for this overlooked commission. The Holy Spirit worked pretty quickly in the conclave of Gregory XIII which lasted a mere 24 hours. And Vasari returned to the papal court in November 1572, anticipating his first commission would be to complete the program in the palace's ceremonial state hall. But soon found that a comprehensive project for every staircase had been added. By January 1573, Vasari informed Grand Duke Cosimo Primo that eight scenes for the stairs were ordered. But within a month, the project grew to a total of 15 images. As reported in a letter to Don Vincenzo Borghini on May 21st. The salary was inaugurated and three days later, Vasari received a payment that was for quote, seven histories of the life of St. Peter for the palace stairs. That said, payments continued through December 1574 for the stairs project, indicating that the frescoes were indeed completed by a different artist. For even the most seasoned expert, the labyrinth of the Apostolic Palace quickly becomes mystifying. Today, a total of nine frescoes are extant that we know of. But because of their various locations in private areas of the papal residence, it is very easy not to recognize that they form a continuous program. In the Scala del Marchello, adjacent to Bernini's Scala Regia, we find Christ washing the feet of the disciples. With Gregory's renovations to the medieval core of the palace appears the calling of St. Peter and the naming of Peter. And in the stairs adjacent to Gregory's loja, we find the giving of the keys, the tribute money, Christ walking on water, Christ teaching on the sea, the miraculous drought of fishes, Christ healing St. Peter's mother-in-law, Christ calming the seas, and Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. All of these photos are mine and they have never been published. So these images are kind of the first chance we get to even see these. Despite their conspicuous presence in the palace, these images have faded into the art historical memory, captured only in 18th century palace guidebooks. Originally Giovanni Belloni attributed their execution to Donato d'Aformello in his lives of the artists. As an assistant to Vasari, d'Aformello represents a likely candidate, but he does not appear in any of the documentation. Following Belloni, Agostino Taya echoed the attribution to d'Aformello and later Giovanni Pietro Chattard gave the entire project to d'Aformello. What makes the commission even more perplexing is the possibility that additional scenes exist. To 18th century text report, a 10th fresco. Ottavio Pancharoli's Roma Sacre Moderna and Filippa De Rossi's discussioni di Roma Moderna both described a last supper together with the tribute money. And certainly the last supper makes a logical book end to the washing the feet in the Passover narrative. All of these texts challenge the assumption that Bernini's Scala Regia destroyed the frescoes in 1661 since they were written 50 to 90 years afterwards. Thanks to Julian Climann scholarship on Vasari's drawings, another overlooked breadcrumb suggests that additional scenes were neglected by Belloni at all. A sheet in Vasari's Ibaldone, which is his book of inventions, lists seven inscriptions for the life of a St. Peter's series. Only two frescoes today carry inscriptions and none of those repeat Vasari's text. Certainly some fit within extant scenes. For example, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head correspond to the washing of the feet. While others suggest figural content of additional scenes. The phrase, Lord shall we use the sword is a variation on Luke 2249 when Peter strikes the servant of the high priest. And he delivered me from Herod is a variation on Acts 12 where Peter is rescued from prison. If the list of inscriptions implies that supplementary scenes were overlooked, Marc Antonio Vasari indicated in the recording a list of his uncle's final commissions that a total of 20 paintings were made. Now contrary to Belloni at all, I can establish that indeed Lorenzo Sabattini deserves the majority of credit for the design and execution of the frescoes. Already in 1565, Sabattini was a part of Vasari's workshop in Palazzo Vecchio and a collaborator on the decorations for the wedding of Francesco the First in Medici. Afterwards, he returned to Bologna from 1566 to 73 when Vasari recalled him to Rome to assist with the Salareggia. And ematic as his origin was, Sabattini was quickly appointed to the superintendent of works under Gregory the 13th. And for an artist who played a pivotal role in shifting the profile of Bologna's artist within the papal court and orchestrated the lion's share of Gregory's commissions, it is surprising indeed that we still await a monograph dedicated to Sabattini. The gap between the completion of the Salareggia and Sabattini's start in the Pauline Chapel is most likely when the Vatican stairs were executed. And in odd twist of events, the papal court waited almost three months for Vasari's much anticipated Pauline Chapel program only to reject an outright without any explanation. And on the very same day, the papal treasurer reimbursed Sabattini for pigments purchased for the chapel, begging the question of whether or not a program was already in place or extant before Vasari's commission. Now this was followed by a payment to Matteo da Castello in August for work on the pavement. And by Christmas Eve, a woodworker was paid for the scaffolding. Thus the operations were underway by the end of 1573 and continued until Sabattini's very unexpected death in 1576. But for seven months from May to December, his workshop had ample time to execute this project. Timing with papal commissions means everything. And rather than think of the stairs as an isolated project, we need to consider how this imagery functioned alongside parallel programs. First and foremost, the iconography actually helps explain the program change in the Pauline Chapel. Margaret Kunst has shown that Vasari's original program called for the dispute of Saint Paul at the Areopagus, Saint Paul defending himself before the grippa. And then two other texts are mentioned by Vincenzo Borghini, The Giving of the Keys. And what is called Jesus Assuring Peter that his faith will never fail. We don't have a drawing of that, but I suspect that indeed that was another Peter walking on water scene. Already the stairs program contained The Giving of the Keys, thus making a second image of it redundant in the papal chapel. Additionally, Mark Antonio Cioppi's 1591 biography of Gregory the 13th reports a now lost program representing images from the Acts of the Apostles for the exterior portico of St. Peter's. Thanks to Marco Simonibolzoni's research on Raphaelino d'Areggio, we know he produced two images for the commission. Peter and John healing the cripple and an introduction of Peter to Christ. Taken as a whole, these images point to a tropological approach to the life of Peter, one that emphasized his conduct as an apostle of Christ and fostering new rhetorical strategies throughout the palace around the theme of discipleship. Whereas the papal commissions of the 14th and early 15th centuries relied heavily on typological analogies to frame papal primacy. Here, the life of Peter as the subject for an extended series of images focuses more on defining membership within the Catholic community. Indeed, the projects were understood as a composite as evidenced by an unpublished biography of Gregory the 13th in the Vatican library. Of the 17 biographies in the archivio bon compagni, one specifically catalogs his artistic patronage, listing all of the commissions and the artists involved. However, it does not proceed chronologically. Instead, it manufactures Gregory's identity as an artistic guidebook, beginning at the heart of his patronage in his eponymous Capella Gregoriana in St. Peter's, exiting the Basilica to the five images above the portico and the quote caposcale, or the stair heads of the palace where the acts of the apostles were painted, quote, made with orders and designs by Lorenzo Sabattini. More importantly, these frescoes only constituted part of the larger messaging system. Metals made for Gregory the 13th bear the same narratives as those found in the Vatican stairs, a point that has not been explored by any previous research. One of the earliest metals designed in 1572, shortly after Gregory's election for the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, here, depicts Christ calming the seas. Similarly, the miraculous drought of fishes, here, appears on Metals 4, Gregory the 13th pious the fourth and pious the fifth. Another prominent image shared by these pontiffs was Christ washing the feet of the disciples, which appears on the cope decoration of Gregory's portrait metal, here. Finally, one of the standardized papal portraits, designed by Lorenzo Frani, incorporates Christ walking on water onto another cope decoration, seen right here. The fact that Gregory's metals appropriate imagery used by his predecessors and that same imagery appears on the staircase points to a sophisticated system for leveraging the symbolic collateral from previous artistic projects under a new pontiff. To borrow from Pierre Bourdieu, unlike physical, human, or natural capital, a papal commission as a form of cultural capital taps into a symbolic efficacy that can logically be transmitted or acquired by successive pontiffs. Like any other asset, cultural capital relies on the principle of value. But unlike the monetary material worth of a fresco, cultural capital represents a specific stock of social values. Here, the symbolic stakes of papal patronage represent an investment by the current pope to leverage the relationships and meanings secured by his predecessors' commissions and extend that value into a current project. This should not be confused with simply completing an extant project or copying a project. Rather, a project like the Images on the Stairs activates the capital already developed by Pius IV and Paul III. For example, Federico Zuccaro, who would eventually complete the decorations for the Pauline Chapel, frescoed images depicting Peter walking on water, the miraculous strata fishes, and Jesus calming the seas for the Casino Pio Quinto, whereas Paul III, Farnese's cope decorations by Perino de la Vaga, here, represent both St. Peter walking on water and Christ washing St. Peter's feet. When we begin to recognize this strategy, other images emerge that compound the social interest in the Acts of the Apostles during the mid to late 16th century, signifying that Gregory's papal commissions participate in what was a gradual shift towards a more nuanced branding of papal primacy. To put it another way, Gregory XIII's projects functions like an early modern retweet, but he is able to amplify its influence through the media range and content management. Ultimately, a conversation about cultural capital adds a new dimension to how we approach papal patronage by thinking more holistically about the evolution of the artistic interventions within the Apostolic Palace, and the connections made between pontiffs in their use and reuse of specific iconographic programs. Thank you.