The Rope Breaks

An ecclesiastical figure dressed in pompous robes walks with his arms outstretched on a knotted rope. The people watching him show disbelief and suspense on their faces, or simply look on with a certain indifference, waiting for the rope to break.

The study of his preparatory drawing, in which the figure wears a papal tiara on his head, is decisive for the interpretation of this engraving. We therefore conclude that it is quite likely that the figure walking on the tightrope was Pius VII (Cesena, 1742-Rome, 1823) and that Goya subsequently thought that it might be advisable not to make the identification of the figure in the print so obvious with a view to a possible publication of the series of engravings.

Pius VII was well described in his texts by Juan Antonio Llorente (Rincón de Soto, La Rioja, 1756-Madrid, 1823); secretary of the Inquisition during the nineties of the 18th century and ambassador of the second constitutional government to the Vatican between 1820 and 1823. His stay in Rome helped him to write a history of the papacy in which he gave some interesting insights into the opportunistic personality of the supreme pontiff: "Pius VII will be ungrateful if he denies that he owes Napoleon Bonaparte the freedom and power of his electors and the peaceful possession of his chair in Rome". Further on he wrote: "The French wanted to elevate their first consul to the dignity of emperor and Pius VII went from Rome to Paris with great pleasure to crown him, as he did in a great ceremony with incomparable solemnity. Subsequently, political affairs took a different turn, and the Emperor stripped Pius VII of the temporal sovereignty of the Roman states". After the fall of Napoleon, Pius VII removed from office all the bishops who had been placed there by virtue of an agreement between him and Napoleon.

Ferdinand VII asked the Pope to promulgate a bull in which he pardoned the religious who had joined the guerrillas during the War of Independence. In addition, the Spanish monarch asked the Church, with the approval of Pius VII, for priests to demand that the people pay taxes from their pulpits. This commitment on the part of the Church placed it in a position that could be what Goya has captured in this engraving, that of someone walking a tightrope full of knots and patches that presage the fall before the attentive gaze of the people.

Nigel Glendinning makes some interesting observations about this engraving, as he considers the image to be a representation of the saying "to walk on a tightrope", which means to be involved in some dangerous action. In this way Goya refers to the somewhat ambiguous dealings in which the Church found itself at that time with the Spanish monarchy in order to obtain its protection, although accepting conditions of a certain risk. 

The Rope Breaks continues the compositional scheme employed by Goya in the previous engravings, No. 75, A Charlatan's Parade and No. 76, The Carnivorous Vulture, in which the centrepiece of the image is a large central figure with its limbs spread out.