Over 500 years ago, Pope Alexander VI commissioned Italian artist Pinturicchio to paint frescoes in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, notably a fresco of the Resurrection of Jesus. However, what appeared to be just another High Renaissance painting of Jesus became much more enigmatic when it was suggested that it might contain the first depiction of Indigenous people of the Americas in European art.  

Suzanne McLeod is an assistant professor of art history at U of M and an Anishinaabe member of Sagkeeng First Nation. With research foci on Indigenous and Renaissance art history, McLeod hosted a lecture with the Jesuit Centre for Catholic Studies at St. Paul’s College last week where she explored the origins and legacy of Pinturicchio’s work. 

According to McLeod, Pinturicchio painted the frescoes between 1492 and 1494, which coincides with Christopher Columbus’s return to Europe from his “discovery” of the Americas. She explained this timing may have led to the addition of Indigenous peoples into the work. 

“We know through conservation now that it looks like he had finished The Resurrection by this point, but it looks like he was directed to insert these images of these dancing naked men at the foot of Christ,” said McLeod. 

The figures are miniscule and virtually amorphous in most photographs, though a close-up reveals greyish men with hollow eyes and expressionless faces. Some have even proposed that one of the figures has a mohawk. 

McLeod pointed out Columbus’s journey to the Americas had also “galvanized” Europe — nations such as Portugal, Spain and France started to make claims to the Americas, and the Vatican was no exception. In 1493, the pope issued the first papal bull rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery, the concept behind colonial conquest that asserted European and Christian superiority over all others.

In other words, the fresco played a role in shaping European perceptions of Indigenous peoples for centuries to come, especially before the invention of the printing press, when information was disseminated through poems, narratives and visual imagery. 

Imagery continues to be a point of contention in modern-day relations between Indigenous peoples and the Catholic Church. McLeod cited one instance where Pope Francis came to Canada in 2022 in what can be described as a “penitential pilgrimage” to listen to stories about the residential school system. At one point, he was given a headdress by Truth and Reconciliation Commission commissioner Wilton Littlechild. This image was jarring for many and caused substantial controversy within the community. 

Moreover, visual imagery in the form of material culture remains a powerful tool used by the Catholic Church to this day. Last month, the Vatican returned 62 Indigenous artefacts to Canada in a historic feat. Though, for McLeod, this does not indicate a desire for complete repatriation. 

“They still have a lot more [items] within their collection [in] the Anima Mundi Ethnographic Museum that is housed within the basement in the Vatican […] They’ve set up this space to showcase or to display most of the items that they’ve collected throughout the years from colonized people around the world,” McLeod commented. 

“There’s an effort there […] but the institution itself is, from what I can see — and this is my own observation — they’re not entirely comfortable, because they did make the statement that this is going to be the only gifting back of these items that’s ever going to happen. So that’s a pretty specific statement to make.”