The Art of the Franciscan Order in Italy

THE ART OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER IN ITALY THE MEDIEVAL FRANCISCANS GENERAL EDITOR Steven J. McMichael University of St...

Author: William R. Cook

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THE ART OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER IN ITALY

THE MEDIEVAL FRANCISCANS GENERAL EDITOR

Steven J. McMichael University of St. Thomas

VOLUME 1

THE ART OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER IN ITALY EDITED BY

WILLIAM R. COOK

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2005

On the cover: illustration from the xvth century manuscript of Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior in the Museo Francescano, Rome. © Museo Francescano. Brill Academic Publishers has done its best to establish rights to use of the materials printed herein. Should any other party feel that its rights have been infringed we would be glad to take up contact with them.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The art of the Franciscan Order in Italy / edited by William R. Cook. p. cm. — (The medieval Franciscans, ISSN 1572-6991 ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-13167-1 (alk. paper) 1. Franciscan art—Italy. 2. Christian art and symbolism—Italy—Medieval, 500-1500. I. Cook, William R. (William Robert), 1943- II. Series. N7952.A1A84 2005 704.9’4863—dc22 2004062919

ISSN 1572–6991 ISBN 90 04 13167 1 © Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................ William R. Cook List of Illustrations .................................................................... Notes on Contributors .............................................................. ‘In loco tutissimo et firmissimo’: The Tomb of St. Francis in History, Legend and Art .................................................. Donal Cooper The Pilgrim’s Progress: Reinterpreting the Trecento Fresco Programme in the Lower Church at Assisi ........................ Janet Robson Prophecy in Stone: The Exterior Facade of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi ................................................................ Daniel T. Michaels Cimabue at Assisi: The Virgin, the ‘Song of Songs’, and the Gift of Love ............................................................................ Marilyn Aronberg Lavin The Date of the St Francis Cycle in the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi: The Evidence of Copies and Considerations of Method .................................................... Thomas de Wesselow The Beholder as Witness: The ‘Crib at Greccio’ from the Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi and Franciscan Influence on Late Medieval Art in Italy ............................ Beth A. Mulvaney ‘I Speak not yet of Proof ’: Dante and the Art of Assisi ........ Ronald B. Herzman The Representation of Posthumous Miracles of St Francis of Assisi in Thirteenth-Century Italian Painting ...................... Gregory W. Ahlquist and William R. Cook Cooperation and Conflict: Stained Glass in the Bardi Chapel of Santa Croce .......................................................... Nancy M. Thompson

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Index of Names and Places ...................................................... Subject Index .............................................................................. Index of Modern Scholars ........................................................

279 291 295

INTRODUCTION William R. Cook

The greatest joy of editing this volume is to have assembled the work of several important senior scholars and essays of young people beginning their careers. I sought out scholars from both sides of the Atlantic; hence there is work here that represents somewhat different scholarly traditions. The essays presented here are the work of historians, art historians, a historian of theology, and a literary scholar. As a result, the art of the Franciscan order is examined from a number of perspectives. Essays focus on panel paintings, frescoes, stained glass, sculpture, and architecture. The result is, I believe, the most significant volume on Franciscan art in decades and perhaps the most important ever in the English language. According to Thomas of Celano, “in beautiful things, [Francis] saw beauty itself.” This is a good way to think about the art discussed in this volume’s essays. The works of art that are studied here are far more than “pretty pictures,” the way they are often thought of today by students and travelers alike. We need always to keep in mind that they were created to elevate the viewer to an understanding and experience of a reality beyond the material world. Francis himself experienced such an epiphany while gazing at a painted crucifix in the crumbling church of San Damiano, just outside the walls of Assisi. As he prayed before this painting, by tradition the one now preserved at Santa Chiara in Assisi, Francis experienced God’s call to “rebuild his church,” a call Francis understood literally long before he perceived a larger meaning to that message. Despite Francis’ own experience at San Damiano, there have been many followers of Francis, from the thirteenth century until the present, who have argued that the art created for the Franciscan Order beginning shortly after Francis’ death is a scandal to the poverty and simplicity of the Order’s founder. After all, the argument goes, would Francis have approved of the sorts of buildings for which the panels and frescoes were created, let alone those decorations that were so expensive and “gaudy”? Many have answered ‘no’ to this question. They cite Francis’ attempted demolition of buildings in Assisi

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and Bologna. There is also a famous story about one of Francis’ earliest brothers, Giles. He came into Assisi during the construction of the Basilica of San Francesco, the saint’s burial church, and was horrified. He approached a brother and asked him where the friars kept their women. After some confusion about the meaning of the question, Giles responded that since it was clear that the friars had abandoned both poverty and obedience, he assumed that they had abandoned chastity too! When people say that Francis would have been the first to tear down the Basilica in which he is buried, they ignore some evidence from the earliest sources for his life. Francis was a man who cared greatly about the cleanliness of churches because they contained the body and blood of Christ, and he believed that these churches should glorify God, not merely house “church functions.” Clare and her sisters made altar cloths, and apparently Francis had no problem with beautiful fabrics in churches. However, it is even more important to consider that Francis nowhere objected to the shrines of saints. He himself venerated saints, principally the Virgin Mary, and doubtless saw numerous images of her in churches. We must always keep in mind that the Basilica in Assisi is not essentially the glorification of a humble fellow from Assisi but rather of Saint Francis. After Francis’ canonization in 1228, his status changed dramatically in the Church. We should not presume to be sure we know how the sinner of Assisi would regard the Basilica of Saint Francis. It is clear that the art produced to honor and tell the story of Francis has had great impact on those who have seen it. There is the famous vision of Angela of Foligno in 1291 before a window in the Upper Church in Assisi. But even today, when millions of tourists (I use this word rather than pilgrims purposely) pass through the Basilica in Assisi and hear about Giotto and Simone Martini as much as about Francis, there is no doubt that Francis “seeps into the souls” of some of them. It was in the summer of 1973 that I came to Assisi for a few days as a tourist to see the art. While there, I bought a copy of Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior in English and re-read it, since I had failed to understand it when reading it for a graduate course several years before. I believe that it was the art more than the text that led me to reconsider Francis. As a medieval historian, I of course had taken Francis seriously as a man who greatly influenced the course of the history of Europe. However, I had not taken him seri-

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ously as someone who had much to say to me or to modern times. I may have arrived in Assisi as a tourist, but I left a pilgrim. Since that time, I have been studying the early art of the Franciscan Order. We also should think about numbers. How many people know something about St Francis from reading and how many primarily from images? From the thirteenth century till now, I would argue that the great majority of people who have encountered Francis have done so through images—images ranging from the frescoes in Assisi to statues in squares and back yards to the St Francis, Brother of the Universe comic book to Zeffirelli’s film Brother Sun, Sister Moon. One wonders what the ratio is today between people who have read the Legenda Maior or any other biography of Francis and the number of people who have seen the frescoes of the Upper Church in Assisi either in person or in reproductions. Because of the centrality of the art in the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi to the history of Franciscan art, or for that matter European art, most of the essays in this volume have their focus there. Two examine the Lower Church. Donal Cooper reconstructs Francis’ tomb. Using archaeological and art historical evidence and bringing to bear the arrangements of the tombs of other Italian Franciscan saints, Cooper offers a comprehensive and convincing reconstruction of the tomb that will be the starting point for discussions of it for years to come. Janet Robson takes up a question so vital for our understanding of the Basilica that it is hard to understand why it has been so infrequently asked. How would pilgrims have visited the Lower Church, the object of their pilgrimage to the shrine of St Francis? She imaginatively and convincingly reconstructs the pilgrims’ visit to the shrine. In doing so, she gives us a new way of examining the complex pictorial program of the Lower Church. She puts aside the much written about stylistic approach to the frescoes in the transept of the Lower Church (left, Sienese; right, Florentine) and focuses our attention on how the art around the altar of the Lower Church presents a program for the pilgrim to finish his/her journey to venerate St Francis. Daniel Michaels introduces us to the Upper Church in a new way. Instead of examining the frescoes and windows, he examines the facade and how it introduces themes that will be taken up inside the church. Once again, we are being called to take seriously something little written about. When most scholars think of the Basilica, they first consider frescoes and then stained glass and architecture.

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Michaels has provided another dimension to understanding how the Basilica provides meaning to those who approach it carefully and thoughtfully. When we enter the Upper Church, we face the principal altar with windows and frescoes behind it in the apse. Those frescoes, which have as their subject the life of the Virgin Mary, are often ignored, in large part because of their poor state of preservation. Marilyn Aronberg Lavin has examined these important paintings of Cimabue carefully and has also made use of surviving works influenced by them to reconstruct the program and the iconography of individual scenes. Her work allows for a fuller and richer understanding of the program of the Upper Church. Thomas de Wesselow enters into the longstanding debate about the dating of the fresco cycle of the life of Francis in the Upper Church. However, he does more than add a new piece of evidence to the debate: he offers a new methodology. In doing so, he makes a strong case for dating the frescoes after Giotto’s in the Arena Chapel in Padua and offers a hypothesis concerning Giotto’s role in the creation of the cycle in Assisi. De Wesselow will no doubt not convince everyone, but the essay is provocative and will be a starting point in every subsequent study of the Assisi Problem. Beth Mulvaney’s contribution is a careful look at one of the twentyeight stories in the Francis cycle, the Christmas Crib at Greccio. She brings to bear literature from the area of spirituality to provide a reading of this fresco, and by extension to the whole cycle, that focuses on the frescoes’ original audience in a pilgrimage church. Although he focuses on the twenty-seventh scene of the Francis cycle, Ronald Herzman’s contribution goes far beyond that fresco or even the entire cycle. He asks whether Dante saw or was influenced by specific frescoes in the Basilica, but his inquiry is much broader and considers the “dialogue” between visual and written materials. Herzman, a noted Dante scholar, provides a sensitive and important reflection on the visual world and how it helps to shape thought. Most Franciscan art was not created for Assisi but for the hundreds of churches of the friars and Clares. The essay that Gregory Ahlquist and I present looks at one theme in Franciscan art—the posthumous miracles of St Francis—and traces them through several early panel paintings, ending with frescoes in both the Upper and Lower churches of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. Ahlquist and I note not just that the focus on posthumous miracles

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declines by the end of the thirteenth century but also why those miracles that are represented change over time. Just as all Franciscan art is not in Assisi, it is not all concerned with Francis since Anthony of Padua, Clare, and Louis of Toulouse were canonized within a hundred years of Francis’ death. Our collection ends with one specific case study of art and patronage dedicated to Louis of Toulouse. Nancy Thompson studies the windows in Santa Croce, Florence, dedicated to Louis of Toulouse. In doing so, she not only discusses iconography but also patronage. Hence, this essay is valuable for its specific addition to our knowledge of Franciscan art and also because it is a reminder of the breadth of art sponsored by the Franciscan Order. One of the most fascinating elements of this book is the interplay between these essays. Clearly there is a close relationship between Robson’s and Cooper’s pieces as they focus on the visit to the tomb of St Francis. We should link Michaels’ essay on the facade of the Upper Church and Lavin’s explication of the apse frescoes since the visitor sees one and then immediately upon entering the Upper Church, the other. Herzman and Mulvaney expand our ways of looking at the Upper Church frescoes and especially the way that contemporaries would see and understand them. Ahlquist and I consider frescoes that Herzman and Robson discuss. Despite the fact that these essays were commissioned without specific connections in mind, there are ways in which this is one book rather than nine essays. I want to thank all of the contributors for the quality of their work, their good spirit in enduring several rounds of editing, their hard work in obtaining photos and permissions, and for numerous other things, not the least of which was dealing with delays caused by an interruption because of surgery I underwent. Equally, I wish to thank Julian Deahl and Marcella Mulder of Brill for their patience and gentle—and occasional not-so-gentle—prodding. I believe that we can all take pride in the result of so many labors. William R. Cook State University of New York, Geneseo

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The illustrations can be found at the back of the book following the index. Donal Cooper, ‘In loco tutissimo et formissimo’: The Tomb of St. Francis in History, Legend and Art 1. A girl with a twisted neck is cured at St. Francis’s tomb, detail of painted panel of St. Francis and his miracles, ca. 1253, Treasury of the Sacro Convento, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 2. An exorcism at St. Francis’s tomb, detail of painted panel of St. Francis and his miracles, ca. 1253, Treasury of the Sacro Convento, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 3. Plan of the 1818 excavation of St. Francis’s tomb. 4. Cross-section of the 1818 excavation of St. Francis’s tomb. 5. ‘F’ initial, Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, cantorino 2, Ms. 1, f. 235r. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 6. Cross-section of the 1860 excavation of St. Clare’s tomb. 7. High altar and pergola, Basilica of S. Chiara, Assisi. 8. High altar of the lower church with supplicant and grate, engraving from Pietro Ridolfi, OFM Conv., Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis libri tres, Venice, 1586. 9. High altar of the lower church with surrounding pergola, engraving from Francesco Antonio Maria Righini, OFM Conv., Provinciale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum S. Francisci Conventualium, Rome, 1771. 10. Sections from the lower church pergola incorporated into the first floor of the Chiostro dei Morti in the early twentieth century. 11. Author’s reconstruction of the transept area of the lower church, S. Francesco, Assisi. 12. View of the transept and high altar, lower church, S. Francesco, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 13. Pietro Lorenzetti, fictive bench, ca. 1316/7–19, south-eastern corner of the south transept, lower church, S. Francesco Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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Janet Robson, The Pilgrim’s Progress: Reinterpreting the Trecento Fresco Programme in the Lower Church at Assisi 1. Ground plan of the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi. Reconstruction by Donal Cooper. 2. View of the north transept of the lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 3. View of the south transept and vele of the lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 4. Glorification of St. Francis, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1308–11. Vele, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 5. Crucifixion, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1308–11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 6. View from the nave into the Magdalen Chapel, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 7. The Voyage to Marseilles and the Miracle of the Abandoned Mother and her Baby, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305–08. Magdalen Chapel, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 8. Francis and Death, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1308–11. North transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 9. Death of Judas, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 10. Allegory of Hope, Giotto ca. 1302–05. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY) 11. Allegory of Despair, Giotto ca. 1302–05. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo: Commune di Padova-Assessorato alla Cultura-Cappella Scrovegni) 12. Miracle of the Roman Notary’s Son, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305–11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 13. Death of the Boy of Suessa, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305–11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 14. Resurrection of the Boy of Suessa, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305–11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)


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15. Entombment, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 16. Deposition, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 17. Harrowing of Hell, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 18. Resurrection, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 19. Crucifixion, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) 20. Stigmatisation of St. Francis, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7–19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi) Daniel T. Michaels, Prophecy in Stone: The Exterior Façade of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi 1. Upper church façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 2. Rose window, upper church façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 3. Detail of rose window, upper church façade, basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 4. Rose window with doctors of the church, west façade, Cathedral at Orvieto, Italy. 5. Stringcourse, upper church exterior façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 6. Papal throne, upper church apse, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 7. Detail of papal throne plinth, upper church apse, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 8. Detail of stringcourse, north eagle, upper church exterior façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 9. Detail of sculpted lintel, east façade, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem. 10. Double portal, upper church exterior façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) 11. Waterways of the Assisi commune.

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Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Cimabue at Assisi: The Virgin, the ‘Song of Songs’, and the Gift of Love 1. Cimabue, Assumption of the Virgin. Detail, fresco, Assisi, San Francesco, upper church, apse, lower tier. 2. The Cesi Master, Stella Altarpiece, tempera on wood, 191 × 175.5 cm. Detail, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Musée Ile de France Foundation. 3. Madonna and Child. Lyons, Bibliothèque de la Ville, ms 410–11, Bible 1, fol. 207v. 4. Solomon and his Beloved. Rheims, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 18, Bible, fol. 149r. 5. Sponsus and Sponsa, attrib. to Master Alexander. Bede Commentary, Cambridge, Eng., King’s College, ms 19, fol. 21v. 6. Christ and Mary in Glory. Rome, Santa Maria in Trastevere, apse mosaic, detail. 7. Emblem of Matrimony. Drawing on vellum, Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Model book, Cod. 507, fol. 1v, detail. 8. William Y. Ottley, Assumption of the Virgin. Detail, engraving after Cimabue, from Seroux d’Agincourt, detail. 9. Cimabue, Mary and Christ in Glory Approached by Franciscan Friars. Assisi, San Francesco, upper church, apse, first scene on right, fourth tier. (Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz) Thomas de Wesselow, The Date of the St Francis Cycle in the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi: The Evidence of Copies and Considerations of Method 1. Stigmatisation. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. Detail. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller) 2. Guiliano da Rimini, Stigmatisation. Detail of Madonna and Child altarpiece, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) 3. Giotto, Entry into Jerusalem. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici) 4. St Clare Mourning St Francis. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller) 5. Patrizio Giovanni before Pope Liberius. Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. (Photo: Alinari)

list of illustrations 6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

11a. 11b. 12a. 12b. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19a. 19b.

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Homage of the Simple Man. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller) Vision of the Thrones. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller) Giotto, chancel arch, Arena Chapel. Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici) Giotto, left-hand fictive chamber (C2). Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici) Giotto, right-hand fictive chamber (C1). Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici) Giotto, lamp (P2). Detail of Fig. 9 [left-hand fictive chamber (C2). Arena Chapel] Lamp (A1). Detail of Fig. 7 [Vision of the Thrones. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church] Giotto, lamp (P1). Detail of Fig. 10 [right-hand fictive chamber (C1). Arena Chapel] Lamp (A2). Detail of Mulvaney, Fig. 4 [Verification of the Stigmata. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church] Diagram: the bases of the hanging lamps A1, A2, P1, P2 and F. Giotto, left-hand fictive chamber (C2) viewed from an angle. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz) St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller) Giotto, Ascension of St John. Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. Detail. (Photo: Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino) Giotto, Christ among the Doctors. S. Francesco, Assisi, lower church. Detail. (Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz) Inverted detail (H) of Fig. 15 [St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church] Diagram: inverted detail (H) of St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. Diagram left-hand fictive chamber (C2), with lamp omitted.

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Beth A. Mulvaney, The Beholder as Witness: The ‘Crib at Greccio’ from the Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi and Franciscan Influence on Late Medieval Art in Italy 1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

Institution of the Crib at Greccio, from the Legend of St. Francis, San Francesco, Assisi (Photo: © 1985 www.assisi.de—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) St. Francis with Scenes from his Life, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence (Photo: © 1982 www.assisi.de—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) Institution of the Crib at Greccio, detail from St. Francis with Scenes from his Life, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence (Photo: © 1982 www.assisi.de—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) Verification of the Stigmata, from the Legend of St. Francis, San Francesco, Assisi (Photo: © 1985 www.assisi.de—Stefan Diller, Würzburg) Miracle of the Crucifix, from the Legend of St. Francis, San Francesco, Assisi (Photo: © 1985 www.assisi.de—Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

Ronald B. Herzman, Dante and the Art of Assisi 1. The Miracle of the Resuscitation of a Woman. San Francesco, Assisi, upper church. Gregory W. Ahlquist and William R. Cook, The Representation of Posthumous Miracles of St Francis of Assisi in Thirteenth-Century Italian Painting 1. Bonaventura Berlinghieri, panel with 6 stories from the life and miracles of St Francis, 1235. San Francesco, Pescia. 2. The cure of the crippled girl. Detail of Fig. 1. 3. The cure of cripples and lepers. Detail of Fig. 1. 4. The cure of Bartholomew of Narni. Detail of Fig. 1. 5. Exorcisms. Detail of Fig. 1. 6. Bardi St Francis Master, panel with 20 stories from the life and miracles of St Francis, ca. 1245. Santa Croce, Florence. 7. Death of Francis with cripples at his bier. Detail of Fig. 6. 8. Cure of the crippled girl and exorcisms. Detail of Fig. 6. 9. Francis rescues sailors. Detail of Fig. 6. 10. Miracle involving penitents. Detail of Fig. 6. 11. Master of Cross 434, panel with 8 stories from the life and miracles of St Francis, ca. 1250. Museo Civico, Pistoia.


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12. Cure of a cripple and a leper. Detail of Fig. 11. 13. Exorcism. Detail of Fig. 11. 14. Giunta Pisano or a follower, panel with 4 miracles of St Francis, ca. 1253. Museo del Tesoro, San Francesco, Assisi. 15. Cure of the crippled girl. Detail of Fig. 14. 16. Cure of cripple and leper. Detail of Fig. 14. 17. Exorcism. Detail of Fig. 14. 18. Follower of Giunta Pisano, panel with 6 miracles of St Francis, ca. 1255. Pinacoteca Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa. 19. Cure of the crippled girl. Detail of Fig. 18. 20. The woman who refused to celebrate St Francis’ feast day. Detail of Fig. 18. 21. The woman who refused to celebrate St Francis’ feast day. Detail of Fig. 20. 22. The cure of the woman with a goiter. Detail of Fig. 18. 23. Exorcism. Detail of Fig. 18. 24. Follower of Giunta Pisano, Cure of Bartholomew of Narni. Detail of panel with 4 miracles of St Francis, ca. 1255. Vatican Museum, Rome. 25. Master of the St John the Baptist Paliotto, The reconciliation of a heretic with the Church. Detail of panel with 4 stories of the life and miracles of St Francis, ca. 1260. Museo Diocesano, Orte. Nancy M. Thompson, Cooperation and Conflict: Stained Glass in the Bardi Chapel of Santa Croce 1. Plan of Santa Croce, Florence, with transept chapels marked. 2. View of the high altar of Santa Croce, Florence. Note the Bardi chapel at the lower right, the Bardi St. Francis window above Giotto’s Stigmatization, and the Tolosini window on the other side of the high altar from the Bardi St. Francis window. (Photo: Art Resource) 3. St. Francis and St. Anthony with Popes. Top of Bardi St. Francis window, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: author) 4. St. Anthony and St. Louis of Toulouse with Popes. Bottom of St. Francis window, Santa Croce, Florence (note that St. Anthony is in both figures 3 and 4). (Photo: author) 5. Approval of the Franciscan Rule, Upper Church, Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi. (Photo: Art Resource) 6. Giotto, Approval of the Franciscan Rule, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: Art Resource)

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7. Giotto, Renunciation of the Worldly Goods, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: Art Resource) 8. View into Bardi St. Louis chapel, Santa Croce, Florence, with view of north window. (Photo: author) 9. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Boniface VIII Receiving St. Louis as a Franciscan Novice, San Francesco, Siena. (Photo: Art Resource) 10. Bardi St. Louis west window, Louis of Toulouse and Louis of France, Santa Croce, Florence, detail of Fig. 11. (Photo: author) 11. Bardi St. Louis west window, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: author) 12. Louis of France and Louis of Toulouse, top of Bardi St. Louis north window, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: author)

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Gregory Ahlquist is an Adjunct Lecturer at SUNY Geneseo. He specializes in Italian Medieval history as well as world history. William R. Cook is Distinguished Teaching Professor at the State University of New York, Geneseo. He has published a brief biography of St Francis (Liturgical Press, 1989) as well as two books on early Franciscan art, most recently Images of St Francis of Assisi (Leo S. Olschki, 1999). Donal Cooper is Course Tutor for the MA in Renaissance Decorative Arts and Culture at the Victoria & Albert Museum. His research focuses on sacred space and the material culture of religion in Italy from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, with a particular emphasis on the Franciscan Order. He has published widely on Franciscan architecture and patronage in central Italy and, with Janet Robson, is presently preparing a book on the Basilica of San Francesco at Assisi. Ronald Herzman is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the College at Geneseo. His publications include The Medieval World View (with William Cook) and The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (with Richard Emmerson). His work on Francis includes a video/audio course which he team teaches with William Cook in the Teaching Company’s “Great Courses” series. Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (Princeton, NJ) is a specialist in the History of Italian Mural Decoration (13–15th centuries). Her publications include: Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art. New York University Press, 1975; The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600 A.D. Chicago, 1990/1994; Liturgia d’Amore: Immagini del Cantico dei Cantici nel arte di Cimabue, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. Modena, 1999; The Liturgy of Love: Images of the Song of Songs in the Art of Cimabue, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt.: Lawrence, KA, 2001 and Piero della Francesca. Phaidon, 2002.

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Daniel T. Michaels is a historical theologian with expertise in the medieval Franciscan tradition. His research explores the interaction and communication between medieval literature and artistic narrative cycles, with particular attention to the interpretation of Scripture. He currently serves as an acquisitions editor and technology advisor for Liguori Publications (U.S.A.) and he is the director of the SacraTech Foundation. Beth A. Mulvaney is an Associate Professor in art history at Meredith College, Raleigh, NC. She specializes in Italian art of the late medieval and early renaissance period. Besides the Assisi San Francesco frescoes, she also has published on Duccio’s Maestà. Janet Robson is Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, University of London. She specialises in late medieval Italian art, particularly iconography and Franciscan art. She has recently published in Apollo and the Art Bulletin and is currently preparing, with Donal Cooper, a book on the Basilica of San Francesco. Nancy M. Thompson is Assistant Professor of Art History at St. Olaf College. She specializes in the study of 14th and 19th-century Florentine stained glass. She has recently published an article on the 14th-century apse decoration of Santa Croce in the journal Gesta. Thomas de Wesselow is a Leverhulme and Newton Trust Research Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge. He researches late medieval and Renaissance art, and cartography and his recent publications include The Guidoriccio fresco: a new attribution (Apollo, 159, 2004).

‘IN LOCO TUTISSIMO ET FIRMISSIMO’: THE TOMB OF ST. FRANCIS IN HISTORY, LEGEND AND ART Donal Cooper

Introduction They say that the body of St. Francis is buried there in a place which they show, but the truth is that no one knows the exact spot, not even those in the monastery, except the Pope, one cardinal, and a brother of the monastery, to whom the Pope confides the secret.

Thus the Spanish pilgrim Pero Tafur summarised his visit to the tomb of St. Francis at Assisi in the spring of 1436.1 His unlikely rationale for a missing grave introduces us at once to the singular blend of memory, mystery and belief that has characterised the study of Francis’s shrine over the centuries. For one thing, any treatment of the Saint’s tomb below the high altar of the Lower Church must confront the extraordinary fact that, prior to 1818, Francis’s body had been lost for at least three hundred years—possibly many more. The archaeological complexities and historical controversies that shroud the tomb continue to deter modern scholars, and general

1 Pero Tafur —Travels and Adventures 1435–1439, trans. and ed. Malcolm Letts (London, 1926), p. 44; the original Spanish texts reads: “Dizen que el cuerpo de Sant Francisco está allí enterrado en un lugar que ellos muestran, pero la verdat es que ninguno non lo sabe en qué lugar está, aunque dentro en el monasterio, salvo el Papa é un cardenal, é un frayle del mesmo monasterio de quien el Papa lo confía”; Andanças é viajes de Pero Tafur por diversas partes del mundo avidos 1435–1439, ed. José María Ramos (Madrid, 1934), p. 29. This article expands a series of research papers delivered to the Association of Art Historians’ annual conference, the Leeds International Medieval Congress (both 2000), and the International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (2001). In developing this material, I am particularly indebted to Janet Robson, Beth Williamson, Paul Binski, Dillian Gordon and Padre Gerhard Ruf, OFMConv., for their generous advice and valuable comments. My research has been supported by the British School at Rome, the Dutch Art Historical Institute in Florence, the Leverhulme Trust, the Henry Moore Foundation and the Research Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The essay is dedicated to Joanna Cannon, whose innovative approach to mendicant shrines inspired me to look again at St. Francis’s tomb.

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studies of the Basilica rarely offer a reconstruction of the Saint’s burial, despite the fundamental function of his tomb in Assisi’s role as one of Europe’s major pilgrimage centres. As a result, the shrine of the most popular of all late medieval saints remains poorly understood, with no consensus regarding its initial form. The modern pilgrim to Assisi experiences the tomb of St. Francis in a manner wholly unrelated to its medieval origins. The Saint’s sarcophagus forms the focal point of a spacious crypt beneath the crossing of the Lower Church that allows the faithful to circulate freely around the tomb. A number of Francis’s first companions— Brothers Leo, Rufino, Masseo and Angelo—are now interred around the crypt’s perimeter, their remains translated here from the transept of the Lower Church in the nineteenth century. The present space, allowing for Ugo Tarchi’s alterations between 1925 and 1932, dates from the 1820s and was inspired by the excavations that finally led to the rediscovery of the body of St. Francis on 12 December, 1818. The records made during that last archaeological campaign now represent one of the key sources for the reconstruction of the medieval tomb, for the entire area beneath the crossing of the Lower Church was subsequently cleared to construct the new crypt. Francis’s tomb has attracted interest from scholars within the Order, and debate is presently dominated by Fra Isidoro Gatti’s exhaustive but unwieldy La Tomba di San Francesco nei secoli (Assisi, 1983).2 The issue of access to the tomb in the medieval period has proved particularly fraught, with Gatti proposing that the hermetic arrangement unearthed in 1818 was in place as early as the mid thirteenth century. Fathers Marinangeli and Zaccaria elaborated an alternative position in serialised contributions to the local periodical S. Francesco Patrono d’Italia, suggesting instead that the tomb was only sealed in the fifteenth century (these articles are, unfortunately, rarely cited in the general literature).3 The correct answer to this basic question is

2 Isidoro Gatti, OFMConv., La Tomba di S. Francesco nei secoli (Assisi, 1983). The important study by Gerhard Ruf, OFMConv., Das Grab des heiligen Franziskus. Die Fresken der Unterkirche von Assisi (Freiburg, 1981) sets the tomb within the wider context of the Lower Church. 3 Bonaventura Marinangeli, OFMConv., published 17 articles under the title “La tomba di S. Francesco attraverso i secoli” in the monthly periodical S. Francesco d’Assisi (published by the Sacro Convento, hereafter SFA) between 4 July, 1921 and 4 February, 1924. A further essay in SFA 8 (1928), pp. 405–410, provides a brief synthesis of his earlier contributions. From 1969 to 1974 Giuseppe Zaccaria, OFMConv.,

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given extra weight by the Order’s consistent assertion that the Assisi tomb contained Francis’s complete and undivided body.4 In 1279 the Podestà and Consiglio of Assisi, responding to false reports of relics from Austria, affirmed that Francis’s whole body was guarded by the friars “in the safest and most secure place” (“in loco tutissimo et firmissimo”).5 The Basilica held no other corporeal relics of the Saint, save for some of Francis’s hair and vials of blood collected from the Stigmata.6 Furthermore, Francis’s body was distinct from every other holy cadaver in bearing the Holy Stigmata, the miraculously imprinted wounds of Christ. These had not been proclaimed

revised and expanded Marinangeli’s arguments in a series of 19 articles, again under the general heading “La tomba di S. Francesco attraverso i secoli”, in the same journal, now renamed S. Francesco Patrono d’Italia (hereafter SFPI). For our purposes, the most important articles in the Marinangeli-Zaccaria series are “Le diverse opinioni degli scrittori antichi e recenti sulla tomba del Santo. Il nostro pensiero”, SFPI 49 (1969), pp. 270–278; “La primitiva sepoltura di S. Francesco in S. Giorgio dove rimase per quattro anni”, SFPI 50 (1970), pp. 46–54; “La traslazione del corpo di S. Francesco nella nuova chiesa costruita in suo onore”, SFPI 50 (1970), pp. 166–174; “Il preteso trafugamento e nascondimento del corpo di S. Francesco”, SFPI 50 (1970), pp. 218–226; “Il loculo sotto l’altare maggiore nel quale Frate Elia collocò il corpo di S. Francesco”, SFPI 51 (1971), pp. 98–105; “La tomba del Santo secondo il sigillo detto di Frate Elia ed una miniatura del secolo XIII”, SFPI 51 (1971), pp. 218–226; “L’antico accesso alla tomba di S. Francesco e quando esso venne definitivamente chiuso”, SFPI 51 (1971), pp. 442–450; “L’altare del Santo nella chiesa inferiore e il corpo primitivo con l’antica iconostasi”, SFPI 52 (1972), pp. 98–106; “Quando e da chi fu modificata la tomba all’esterno e all’interno”, SFPI 52 (1972), pp. 218–226; “Visite vere e visite fantastiche alla tomba di S. Francesco”, SFPI 53 (1973), pp. 38–46; “La commissione pontificia descrive in quale stato si trovava il corpo di S. Francesco nell’anno 1818”, SFPI 54 (1974), pp. 38–45; “La commissione pontificia conclude la ricognizione del corpo di S. Francesco. La visita dell’Imperatore Francesco I”, SFPI 54 (1974), pp. 198–205. 4 A rather later tradition, which can be dated from Bartolomeo da Pisa’s De Conformitate of 1385–90, claimed that Francis’s heart had been removed at his death and buried at the Porziuncola, see Gatti, La tomba, pp. 163–186. 5 Livarius Oliger, OFM., “Testimonium Municipii Assisiensis de adhuc integro corpore S. Francisci anno 1279”, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (hereafter AFH) 11 (1918), pp. 557–559; Gatti, La tomba, pp. 99, 112, 168: on 6 June, 1279 the municipal authorities declared “quod de corpore Sancti nostri, videlicet beati Francisci, nichil est diminutum vel ablatum [certain friars in Austria had claimed to possess a relic of one of Francis’s fingers], sed totum salvum et integrum corpus in loco tutissimo et firmissimo Assisii apud Fratres Minores in Christo nobis Karissimos in ecclesia ad honorem eius constructa et dedicata sub diligenti custodia et debita reverencia conservatur”. 6 The 1338 sacristy inventory recorded “unum ciborium cristallinum, cum pede argenteo; in quo est de sanguine beati Francisci” and another similar “in quo est de sanguine beati Francisci et de capillis et de tunica”; see Francesco Pennacchi and Lato Alessandri, “I più antichi inventari della Sacristia del Sacro Convento di Assisi (1338–1473)”, AFH 7 (1914), p. 78.

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or widely witnessed during Francis’s lifetime, making his body a critical document in the Order’s efforts to gain widespread acceptance for the Stigmatisation as historical fact.7 The first part of this essay reviews the evidence—literary, archaeological and representational—for the reconstruction of the medieval tomb, and offers a new synthesis of the available material. The second begins the task of integrating the material fabric of the tomb into a broader treatment of pilgrimage at Assisi, focusing on the years around 1300. Thanks to the work of André Vauchez and his school, we now have a much better understanding of the devotional practices fostered by the cult of saints in late medieval Italy, while recent scholarship on pilgrimage has emphasised the need to establish shrines within their architectural contexts.8 By setting Francis’s tomb within the wider environment of the Lower Church, I will address the uneasy relationship between the Saint’s shrine and the spatial arrangement of the transept area, a tension fed by the conflicting demands of friars and pilgrims.

(i) The Reconstruction of the Tomb The Historical Record Francis Bernardone died on the night of the 3/4 October, 1226 at the Porziuncola, the simple church dedicated to S. Maria degli Angeli that he had rebuilt on the plain below Assisi. At his death the early

7 Elias of Cortona proclaimed the Stigmata in an encyclical letter to the Order sent several days after Francis’s death, which stated that “non diu ante mortem frater et pater noster apparuit crucifixus, quinque plagas, quae vere sunt stigmata Christi, portans in corpore suo”. Elias likened the Stigmata on Francis’s hands and feet to wounds received from nails that had passed through his flesh, leaving protruding black scars. His side appeared punctured by a lance, and blood flooded freely from this open wound. For Elias’s Epistola and the subsequent promotion and acceptance of the Stigmata see Chiara Frugoni, Francesco e l’invenzione delle stimmate: Una storia per parole e immagini fino a Bonaventura e Giotto (Turin, 1993), esp. pp. 52–62. 8 André Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge: d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (Rome, 1981). For a recent case study of a mendicant shrine in its artistic context see Joanna Cannon and André Vauchez, Margherita of Cortona and the Lorenzetti—Sienese Art and the Cult of a Holy Woman in Medieval Tuscany (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1999), esp. pp. 21–78. For the importance of the wider architectural context see J. Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, ca. 300–1200 (Oxford, 2000).


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biographies describe his soul ascending to heaven on a white cloud, envisioned by the dying Fra Agostino, Provincial Minister of the Terra del Lavoro.9 While Francis’s spirit departed in celestial glory, there was every expectation that his body would acquire the status of a miracle-working holy relic. This assumption underlay the careful precautions of the friars and civic authorities in guiding the ailing Francis back to Assisi; it now necessitated the removal of his body from S. Maria degli Angeli. Francis had intended to die at the Porziuncola, but this small chapel was too strategically exposed to offer a viable location for his shrine. The next day, Francis’s remains were removed to the suburban convent of S. Damiano, where they were venerated by St. Clare. From there the holy cadaver was swiftly translated within the city walls to the parish church of S. Giorgio. The need to protect Francis’s body from profanation or theft was keenly felt from the outset, and it was to colour the eventual design of his shrine in the Lower Church. Perugia—Assisi’s neighbour and traditional political rival—presented the principal threat, and Brother Elias had carefully avoided that city’s territory when accompanying Francis on his final journey from Cortona to Assisi in 1226.10 The fear of furta sacra must have revived after 1320 when Perugian forces sacked the Assisian settlement of Isola Romanesca (modern-day Bastia, less than two miles from S. Maria degli Angeli) and removed the relics of the Franciscan Blessed Conrad of Offida to the Perugian church of S. Francesco al Prato.11 Within S. Giorgio Francis’s remains were placed within a substantial but simple wooden coffin—this is the arrangement that is depicted with remarkable consistency in a number of post mortem miracle scenes on the early Vita panels (Fig. 1).12 The hopes of the friars

9 For Bonaventure’s version see Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2, eds. Regis J. Armstrong OFMCap., J.A. Wayne Hellmann OFMConv., William J. Short OFM. (New York, 2000), p. 644 (hereafter cited as Early Documents). For a synthesis of the various accounts of Francis’s final days see Michael Robson, OFM., St. Francis of Assisi: The Legend and the Life (London, 1997), pp. 254–262. 10 Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Le diverse opinioni”, pp. 273–4. 11 For Conrad of Offida’s relics see Donal Cooper, “Qui Perusii in archa saxea tumulatus: The Shrine of Beato Egidio in S. Francesco al Prato, Perugia”, Papers of the British School at Rome 69 (2001), p. 235, note 59. 12 For the S. Giorgio arrangement see Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “La primitiva sepoltura”, pp. 46–54. After 1230, the wooden arca seems to have been dismantled, and in 1717 the Eremo delle Carceri still possessed a relic “del legno della cassa, ove prima di esser trasferito riposava il suo [Francis’s] corpo” (p. 54, note 5).

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and the townspeople were not disappointed, for on 16 July, 1228 Francis was canonised in a lengthy ceremony led by Pope Gregory IX in S. Giorgio. The modest parish church was in many ways a fitting resting-place for the new Saint: Francis had studied there as a young man and had preached his first sermons in the church.13 It seems clear, however, that the S. Giorgio tomb was always intended as a provisional arrangement while a more ambitious sepulchre was prepared, suitable for receiving the pilgrims flocking to Francis’s shrine. Plans for this new building were already well advanced by the time of the canonisation. On 29 March, 1228 a certain Simone Puzzarelli had given the friars a plot of land on the Collis Inferni, the barren promontory to the west of the town that overlooked the Tiber valley towards Perugia.14 In April Gregory’s bull Recolentes qualiter proclaimed the building of a great church and enjoined the faithful to offer alms to aid its completion.15 Through the redeeming presence of St. Francis, the site was now to be known as the Collis Paradisi. On 14 July, 1228, two days before the canonisation ceremony, the Pope laid the foundation stone for the new double basilica of S. Francesco. Within two years, sufficient progress had been made on the Lower Church to allow the translation of the Saint’s remains to their new tomb. This occurred on 25 May, 1230—the eve of Pentecost—with thousands of friars gathered in Assisi for the opening of the General Chapter of the Order the next day. What exactly happened in Assisi that day will probably never be known, but the 1230 translation marks the beginning of the secrecy and rancour that clouds our understanding of Francis’s tomb. The translation was evidently a troubled affair, this much is clear from

According to local sources, another section was later painted with Francis’s image. This is often identified with the thirteenth-century panel of the Saint, sometimes attributed to Cimabue, preserved at S. Maria dei Angeli; see L. Carattoli, “Di una tavola della primitiva cassa mortuaria di S. Francesco”, Miscellanea francescana 1 (1886), pp. 45–46. Another early image of St. Francis at the Porziuncola by the Maestro di S. Francesco was said to be painted on the board on which Francis died, for this tradition see Elvio Lunghi, Il Crocefisso di Giunta Pisano e l’Icona del ‘Maestro di S. Francesco’ alla Porziuncola (S. Maria degli Angeli, 1995), pp. 65–91. 13 With reference to Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, see Early Documents 2, p. 647. 14 Gatti, La tomba, p. 76. 15 The bull specified a church “in qua eius corpus debeat conservari”, see Bullarium Franciscanum Romanorum Pontificum constitutiones, epistolas, ac diplomata continens tribus ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum, et Poenitentium (hereafter Bullarium Franciscanum), ed. Johannes H. Sbaralea (Rome, 1759), vol. 1, pp. 40–41; Gatti, La tomba, pp. 76–77.


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our best contemporary source, the papal bull Speravimus hactenus sent by Gregory IX twenty-two days later to the bishops of Perugia and Spoleto (the See of Assisi lying vacant at the time).16 The Pope berated the civic authorities of Assisi for disrupting the translation without papal authorisation and threatened to revoke the generous privileges granted to the Basilica by his earlier edict Is qui Ecclesiam. On pain of excommunication he ordered the Podestà and Consiglio of Assisi to send representatives to Rome to explain their behaviour. Gregory’s tone was uncompromising: “Sciant quam graviter Nos, imo Dominum offenderunt”. The Pope’s anger was evidently placated, for the Basilica kept its privileges and the Podestà and others escaped excommunication, but the translation remained a matter of controversy within the Franciscan Order. The principal strand of Franciscan hagiography treated the event as unremarkable. Julian of Speyer, who was probably present in Assisi that day, stated simply: “The most holy body was translated to the church constructed near the walls of the city with such great solemnity that it cannot be briefly described”.17 Bonaventure gave a similarly straightforward description, adding that “while that sacred treasure was being carried, marked with the seal of the Most High King, He whose likeness he bore deigned to perform many miracles”.18 But another tradition questioned the orthodox account. The first sign of discontent surfaces in the late 1250s with Thomas of Eccleston’s claim that “the body of St. Francis had been translated three days before the friars gathered [for the General Chapter]”.19 The author of the Speculum vitae beati Francisci (ca. 1325) was more succinct: “Elias, led by his concern for the remains, had the translation done before the friars gathered”.20 This charge received its

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Bullarium Franciscanum, vol. 1, pp. 66–67; Gatti, La tomba, p. 87. Analecta Franciscana (hereafter AF) 10 (1941), p. 371; “Translatum est igitur corpus sanctissimum ad eamdem costructam foris prope muros civitatis ecclesiam . . . cum tanto videlicet apparatu solemni, qui brevi sermone describi non posset”; cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 94. English translation in Early Documents 1, p. 420; Julian’s text is generally dated between 1232–35. 18 Early Documents 2, p. 648. 19 Fratris Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston: De adventu fratrum minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little (Manchester, 1951), p. 65; “credidit [Elias] autem populus, quod esset discordia, quia corpus sancti Francisci tertia die, antequam patres convenissent, translatum erat”. 20 Gatti, La tomba, p. 96; “Fecit igitur fieri translationem illam Helias antequam fratres convenirent, humano timore ductus”. 17

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fullest treatment in the Chronica XXIV Generalium, compiled between 1365 and 1373: “Brother Elias . . . led by his concern for the remains, had the translation conducted secretly, desiring that none but a few would know where the holy body was buried in the church”.21 Did Elias deliberately conceal Francis’s body within a hidden tomb? Even Eccleston’s account, the first to directly level the accusation, postdates the translation by several decades and bears the bitter taste of the general blackening of Elias’s name that characterised so much Franciscan polemic from the mid-thirteenth century on. Although not Minister General at the time, Elias seems to have maintained effective control of the Basilica complex in Assisi and would undoubtedly have been involved in the burial of St. Francis in the Lower Church. Nevertheless, it is difficult to discern any motive for malicious activity on his part—indeed, Eccleston and the author of the Chronica XXIV Generalium do not provide one, beyond a vague dislike of Giovanni Parenti. The allegations are only comprehensible in the context of the wider pattern of malign behaviour ascribed to Elias by later texts.22 It is perhaps instructive that another thirteenthcentury source, Fra Salimbene da Parma, who missed no opportunity to censure the sometime Minister General, did not mention Elias in connection with the translation, which he entered in his chronicle without further comment.23 The case for malpractice on Elias’s part should probably be discounted, for it is hardly credible that a burial place could have been prepared in the church without the cognisance of other friars. A more likely scenario is that the funerary procession became increas-

21 AF 3 (1897), p. 212; “Frater Helias . . . ductus humano timore, occulte fecit fieri translationem, nolens quod scirent aliqui ubi esset in ecclesia sacrum corpus, paucis exceptis”, cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 96. 22 Michael Robson has observed that the genuine disagreements at the subsequent general chapter probably came to colour perceptions of Elias’s involvement in the translation over time, see St. Francis of Assisi, p. 268. A very different explanation for the 1230 controversy is provided by Richard Trexler’s provocative article “The Stigmatised Body of St. Francis of Assisi Conceived, Processed, Disappeared” in Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter. Politisch-soziale Kontexte, visuelle Praxis, korperliche Ausdrucksformen, eds. Klaus Schreiner and Marc Müntz (Munich, 2002), pp. 463–497, where the translation is reassessed within a sceptical analysis that doubts the presence or visibility of the Stigmata on the Saint’s body, at least by 1230. 23 Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam, ed. G. Scalia (Bari, 1966), vol. 1, p. 96; “Anno Dominice incarnationis MCCXXX generale capitulum fratrum Minorum Assisii est celebratum. In quo corporis beati Francisci, VIII Kal. Iunii translatio facta fuit” (composed 1282–88); cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 94.


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ingly chaotic as it approached the Basilica, with the friars and townspeople threatening to swamp the cortège and damage the Saint’s remains. At this point, with the aid of civic officials and soldiers, the procession was brought to a hurried conclusion and the burial conducted privately within the Basilica while the crowd was locked outside. Public hysteria was a genuine danger during the translation or burial of relics—the most extreme disturbances surrounded the funerary rites of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Marburg on 17 November, 1231, when the faithful tore at the clothes, hair, ears and nails of the cadaver.24 Irrespective of these specific accusations, the theme of the secret tomb became firmly embedded within the Order’s collective memory. In his mammoth De Conformitate vitae Beati Francisci ad vitam Domini Iesu (1385–90), Bartolomeo da Pisa inevitably linked Francis’s tomb with Christ’s: “As Christ’s tomb was sealed and watched by guards, so St. Francis’s tomb has been sealed, to prevent his body ever being visible to anyone”.25 Elsewhere in his text, Bartolomeo claimed that “nothing of [Francis’s] body is shown or kept to be shown to the people; for he lies in that church in a place which is known to no one but a few” (echoing the “paucis exceptis” of the Chronica XXIV Generalium).26 The same refrain found its way into the pilgrimage literature, as evidenced by Pero Tafur’s bemused account from 1436, cited at the beginning of this article. Tafur’s comment “that no one knows the exact spot, not even those in the monastery”, must reflect the sort of explanation that the friars were giving to common pilgrims by the early fifteenth century. On 28 November, 1442 Perugian forces led by the condottiere Nicolò Piccinino stormed Assisi, and within days the Priors of Perugia had petitioned Pope Eugenius IV to authorise the removal of Francis’s body from the Basilica. Eugenius’s reply, enunciated in the letter Accepimus licteras of 21 December, 1442, strongly rejected the Perugian

24 Gatti, 1983, p. 86. For the comparison with the equally disordered translation of St. Anthony of Padua’s body after his death in 1231, see Robson, St. Francis of Assisi, pp. 252–254. 25 AF 5 (1912), p. 443; “Sicut sepulchrum Christi fuit clausum et signatum cum custodibus, sic beati Francisci sepulchrum fuit clausum, ut numquam deinceps alicui patuerit eius corpus”; cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 112. 26 AF 4 (1906), p. 178; “De cuius corpore ad ostendendum populis nihil invenitur nec habetur; ac in quo ecclesiae loco iaceat, etsi quibusdam sit agnitum, quibus vero, nulli est notum”; cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 118.

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claims, noting that the removal of Francis’s relics would spell the desolation and ruin of the Basilica. Instead the Pope admonished the governor of Perugia, the Franciscan Provincial Minister and Piccinino to “undertake, and execute such provisions, so that no harm can befall these relics”.27 Eugenius’s letter stands at the beginning of a long tradition, upheld by Marinangeli and Zaccaria but rejected by Gatti, that dates the definitive closure of Francis’s tomb to the papal rearrangements of the fifteenth century. At this point, the nature of our sources begins to change, as the Franciscan literature assumes a mystical and prophetic tone, focusing on nocturnal visits to secret chambers below the Lower Church and the final sealing of the Saint’s tomb by the Franciscan Pontiff Sixtus IV. In his Franceschina of ca. 1476, Fra Giacomo degli Oddi gave a colourful account of the clandestine veneration of Francis’s remains and the Holy Stigmata by Sixtus IV and two companions.28 Degli Oddi went on to describe Sixtus’s desire to publicly display Francis’s body, which was said to be miraculously uncorrupted. He was dissuaded from this by S. Giacomo della Marca, who cautioned that Francis’s body must be preserved for future ages, more in need of faith than their own.29 Heeding the advice of the fiery Observant preacher, the Pope then ordered the final sealing of the Saint’s tomb. For all of this information, Giacomo degli Oddi gave his source as certain friars “worthy of trust” from the Sacro Convento. The story was enthusiastically taken up by other Franciscan writers: Mariano da Firenze (†1523) further embellished Giacomo’s account in his Compendium Chronicarum, fixing Sixtus’s descent to the tomb to 1476, while Luke Wadding later repeated substantially the same story in his Annales Minorum of 1625.30 In 1676, two centuries after the Pope’s

27 Gatti, La tomba, pp. 114–115, 196; “. . . ut cura de ea re suscipiant, et talem provisionem . . . faciant, quod dictis reliquiis nullum damnum inferri possit”. 28 Nicola Cavanna, OFM., La Franceschina. Testo volgare umbro del sec. XV scritto dal P. Giacomo Oddi di Perugia, edito la prima volta nella sua integrità (S. Maria degli Angeli, 1931), vol. 2, pp. 195–196. 29 According to the Franceschina, Giacomo della Marca—then residing at the Eremo delle Carceri—argued, “Beatissimo Patre, ad me non me pare per niente, perchè tutto el mondo verria ad vedere lo novello Christo stigmatizzato, et seria pericoloso che molta gente perisse de la fame per la moltitudine grande che veria in Italia; et quando Dio vorà, se mostrarà ad un altro tempo che serà maiore de bisogno de la fede”; Cavanna, La Franceschina, vol. 2, p. 196; Gatti, La tomba, p. 115, note 220. 30 Mariano da Firenze, OFMObs., “Compendium chronicarum fratrum minorum”, in AFH 4 (1911), p. 323; “Anno quo supra [1476] Sixtus cum tota curia


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visit to Assisi, the friars of the Sacro Convento affirmed in chapter that “from the time of Sixtus IV, Supreme Pontiff from our Order, no man has accessed the subterranean church in which rests the body of the Saint: for access to it is obstructed by a solid and ancient wall at the entrance to the place which may not be opened without public notice”.31 In the sixteenth century, widespread belief in a lost tomb below the Lower Church crystalised around the concept of a third, hidden church. Giorgio Vasari, in the 1550 edition of his famous Lives, discussed the Basilica of S. Francesco in terms of a tripartite structure: “Maestro Iacopo Tedesco [to whom Vasari attributed the plan of the Basilica] . . . designed a beautiful church and convent, built according to the model of three orders: one to act as a crypt, the others as two churches”.32 Vasari continued: “in front of the cappella maggiore of the Lower Church is the altar, and beneath this, when it was finished, they entombed with a most solemn translation the body of St. Francis. And the tomb that contains the body of the glorious Saint is in the lowest church where no one ever goes and which has its entrance walled up . . .”33 More influential than Vasari for the Franciscan tradition was Marcus of Lisbon’s very full treatment of Nicholas’s V’s fantastical 1449 visit to the “third church” in his tempore indulgentie, venit Assisium ad visitandum et ad videndum corpus beati Francisci”; Wadding gave Mariano as his source, both cited by Gatti, La tomba, pp. 123–124. Sixtus’s visit Assisi in 1476 to honour the relics of St. Francis is confirmed by a letter written by the Ferrarese ambassador to the Holy See, but this document only mentions the Saint’s habits and shoes, see Gatti, p. 131, who disbelieved Degli Oddi’s account of the visit to the tomb (pp. 122–123). 31 Cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 124: “. . . ad subterraneam Ecclesiam, in qua Sanctum illud quiescit Corpus, a tempore Sixti IV ex nostro Ordine Summi Pontificis neminem unquam hominum deinceps accessisse: aditus enim ad illam solido ac antiquato obstructus muro ex patenti loco aperiri nequit absque publica notitia”. See also Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Quando e da chi fu modificato”, p. 220. 32 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori: nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, eds. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, vol. 2 (Florence, 1967), p. 51; “disegnò un corpo di chiesa e convento bellissimo, facendo nel modello tre ordini: uno da farsi sottoterra e gli altri per due chiese”. Vasari’s sources for Assisi are discussed by Pietro Scarpellini, “La decorazione pittorica della Chiesa Superiore nelle fonti fiorentine e nella tradizione assisiana fino agli inizi del diciassettesimo secolo”, in Il cantiere pittorico della Basilica Superiore di S. Francesco in Assisi, eds. Giuseppe Basile and Pasquale Magro (Assisi, 2001), pp. 311–328. 33 Vasari, Le vite, p. 51; “alla capella maggiore della chiesa di sotto, l’altare, e sotto quello, quando fu finito, collocarono con solennissima traslazione il corpo di S. Francesco. E perché la propria sepoltura che serba il corpo del glorioso Santo è nella prima, cioè nella più bassa chiesa dove non va mai nessuno e che ha le porte murate . . .”

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Chronicas of 1557.34 The author described a richly decorated subterranean chamber, where St. Francis’s uncorrupted body stood bolt upright, facing the east with light shining from the Stigmata. Marcos’s Portuguese text was quickly translated into Spanish and Italian, and coloured much subsequent Franciscan commentary on the tomb.35 In the early years of the seventeenth century, a pilgrim’s pamphlet printed at Assisi graphically captured these beliefs in a series of engravings, while a groundplan and view of the “third church” were included in the first comprehensive history of the Basilica, Francesco Maria Angeli’s Collis Paradisi, published posthumously in 1704.36 However rich, the literary traditions concerning the tomb are complex and confused, with any historical basis perceived through the distorting prisms of time and myth. As we have seen, there is no pristine, uncontested description of the shrine on which to build, for the burial attracted controversy from the very beginning. The subterranean visions of St. Francis miraculously on his feet fall outside the expertise of the art historian, but the question of an accessible third church in the medieval period must be resolved before we proceed. Fortunately we can turn to a body of archaeological data to offset the more fabulous Franciscan legends. The Archaeological Evidence—An Open Tomb? The growing speculation over the nature and location of Francis’s tomb formed the backdrop to a series of carefully organised excavations to recover his remains.37 Two campaigns in 1755 and 1802–3 failed before a third, led by the Papal Commissioner for Antiquities Carlo Fea in 1818, finally succeeded.38 Luckily for the modern scholar, 34 The first volume of Marcus’s chronicle, which contains his account of the tomb, was published in Portuguese in 1557, see Gatti, La tomba, pp. 199–201. 35 Gatti, La tomba, p. 201, counted five editions of the Italian translation of Marcus’s first volume printed in Venice between 1582 and 1597. 36 Francesco Maria Angeli, OFMConv., Collis Paradisi amœnitas, seu Sacri Conventus Assisiensis historiæ libri II (Montefalco, 1704), Liber primus, inserted between pp. 8–9; entitled “Ecclesia in qua stat S.P. Francisci corpus interior prospectus; plancta eiusdem”, signed by the local artist Francesco Providoni. The various legends regarding the third church are discussed on pp. 9–19. 37 A faction in the Observant branch of the Order had begun to dispute the very existence of the tomb, culminating in Flaminio Annibali’s polemic Quanto incerto sia che il corpo del Serafico S. Francesco esista in Assisi nella Basilica del suo nome (Lausanne, 1779), see Gatti, La tomba, pp. 175–177. 38 An earlier excavation, sponsored by Pope Pius V, seems to have been attempted in 1571–72, see Gatti, La tomba, p. 230.


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Fea scrupulously recorded what he found through extensive written reports and invaluable cross-sections of the area beneath the high altar (Figs. 3, 4).39 Francis’s remains were discovered inside a simple stone sarcophagus, probably of Early Christian origin, which was, in turn, enclosed within a wrought iron cage or arca.40 A number of coins and a ring were found amongst the fragments of his bones, indicating that at one point supplicants had been able to cast offerings into the open coffin.41 The burial loculus had been hewn out of the mountainside and measured approximately 380cm2 in floor area (Fig. 3).42 The greater part of this space, however, had been filled in so that the actual cavity containing the sarcophagus was much smaller, measuring only 236cm × 113cm.43 The surrounding area was filled with a mixture of poorly worked rubble and cut stone, the latter being used to construct the walls that enclosed the sarcophagus. A great deal of discussion has focused on three massive slabs of travertine

39 Summarized in Carlo Fea, Descrizione ragionata della sagrosanta patriarcal Basilica e cappella papale di S. Francesco d’Assisi, nella quale recentemente si è ritrovato il sepolcro e il corpo di si gran santo, e delle pitture e sculture di cui va ornato il medesimo tempio (Rome, 1820). More material was gathered by Niccola Papini, OFMConv., Notizie sicure della morte, sepoltura, canonizzazione e traslazione di S. Francesco d’Assisi e del ritrovamento del di lui corpo (first edition: Florence, 1822; second edition, Corretta ed accresciuta dall’autore: Foligno, 1824). Several engravings were made of the excavations, those reproduced here are the most detailed, being drawn by Giovambattista Mariani and engraved by Giovambattista Cipriani in 1818. Both were eyewitnesses to the discovery of Francis’s tomb. 40 Gatti, La tomba, pp. 35–43; the sarcophagus is probably the pre-1230 tomb “de lapide” described in S. Giorgio (presumably within the larger wooden shrine) by Henri d’Avranches in his Versified Life of St. Francis (1232–39) see Early Documents 1, p. 518. No early source mentions the iron cage, but Gatti supposed that Elias commissioned it soon after Francis’s death. A similar wrought iron arca guarded Margherita of Cortona’s cadaver in the early fourteenth century, see Cannon and Vauchez, Margherita of Cortona, pp. 61–62. Another iron cage, apparently made for the tomb of St. Luke in 1177, survives in S. Giustina, Padua, see Girolamo Zampieri, La tomba di “S. Luca Evangelista” (Rome, 2003), pp. 212–214. 41 For the objects recovered from the tomb, see Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “La commissione pontificia descrive in quale stato si trovava il corpo”, pp. 38–45, and ibid., “La commissione pontificia conclude la ricognizione”, p. 199. The numismatic evidence, unfortunately, does not clarify the closure of the tomb, for the coins were minted at Lucca between 1181 and 1208, so the offerings may well predate the 1230 burial. The ring bore a depiction of Minerva and is now lost (illustrated by Fea, p. v). 42 The measurements are Michele Millozzi’s, Gatti gave slightly smaller dimensions (350 × 360cm), see La tomba, p. 96. 43 Ibid., p. 100.

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limestone that were found above the coffin, which are clearly illustrated in the cross-section of the excavated tomb (numbers 2, 3 and 4 in Fig. 4). The two upper monoliths (numbers 3 and 4) were intended as protective layers: they were set into the walls of the cavity, were strengthened by a bond of cement sandwiched between them, and rested on three iron bars, so that their weight in no way bore down on the sarcophagus below.44 This singular arrangement was immovable, and served to shield Francis’s remains from the immense load of stone and mortar above, not to mention the mass of the altar platform.45 Below this impenetrable stratum, the third, smaller slab (number 2) was placed over the sarcophagus, free from the surrounding walls.46 It served as a lid, but did not rest directly on the stone coffin, which was encased within its wrought iron cage. Lid and sarcophagus were separated by a dense grille of metal. This evidence has been interpreted in very different ways. Isidoro Gatti believed that the excavation had uncovered the tomb as it had been sealed in the early thirteenth century, or certainly by the time the high altar of the Lower Church was consecrated in 1253.47 Contrary to this position, Marinangeli, Zaccaria and—in response to Gatti’s monograph—Michele Millozzi have all argued that the 1818 cross-section records a later closure of the tomb effected after 1442, under the auspices of either Eugenius IV or Sixtus IV.48 The confined arrangement found in 1818, they observe, cannot explain the original excavation of a much larger chamber, nearly four metres square in plan and over three and a half metres deep, hewn from the solid bedrock of the Collis Paradisi.49 The manner in which much 44

Ibid., pp. 103–104. However, Gatti, La tomba, pp. 104–6, suggested that the twin travertine slabs initially served as a pavement for a small confessio space above, which was accessible from 1230 until the construction of the high altar (before 1253). 46 Ibid., pp. 102–103; this slab survives and today forms the dossal above the altar in the crypt. It measures 234 × 97cm, but a section was chiselled away during the 1818 invention. 47 For Gatti’s own conclusions, see La tomba, p. 160. The only element that Gatti would attribute to the Quattrocento was the introduction of the aggregate filling above the twin travertine slabs, which he associated with Eugenius IV’s 1442 injunction to secure the tomb (although how this work could have been completed without the removal of the high altar above remains unclear). 48 Michele Millozzi, OFMConv., “L’altare maggiore della Basilica inferiore”, SFPI 66 (1986), pp. 1–13. For the high altar of the Lower Church see also Julian Gardner, “Some Franciscan Altars of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries”, in The Vanishing Past: Studies in Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology Presented to Christopher Hohler, eds. Alan Borg and Andrew Martindale (Oxford, 1981), pp. 29–38. 49 Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, p. 8, estimated that, according to Gatti’s argu45


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of this chamber was filled with stone and aggregate raises further questions. The narrow space that contained Francis’s sarcophagus was faced with blocks of variable quality. Some pieces of finely dressed stone were recovered, while others were crudely worked and haphazardly arranged—hardly worthy of a carefully prepared burial.50 Marinangeli, Zaccaria and Millozzi explain these anomalies by dating the coarse stonework of the burial cavity and the two bonded slabs of travertine (together with the crude in-fill above) to the Quattrocento.51 According to this reconstruction, the surrounding area cut from the bedrock and filled with rubble and stone marks the extent of a more expansive, thirteenth-century chamber beneath the Lower Church, probably topped by a vault to support the high altar above.52 Marinangeli, Zaccaria and Millozzi have suggested that the dressed stone used in the fifteenth-century rearrangement was taken from the pavement and cladding of this earlier chamber, although it is equally possible that much of the original floor and walls could have been left as bare rock.53 The extraordinary depth of the burial loculus—the factor which had foiled the earlier excavations in 1755 and 1802/3—would have left room for a shallow vault over such a chamber.54 Within this subterranean space, Francis’s remains would have been protected by the wrought iron cage that enveloped the sarcophagus. In addition, grille and coffin were almost certainly capped by the third travertine slab, which was treated as an integral part of Francis’s arca by the fifteenth-century rearrangement. The closure of the tomb would have necessitated the dismantling

ments, Elias had removed an extra 15–20 cubic metres of bedrock over and above what was necessary for the construction of the reduced loculus as it was found in 1818. Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Il loculo sotto l’altare”, p. 105, give the depth of the tomb as 375cm (from the pavement of the Lower Church, not including the altar platform). 50 Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Il loculo sotto l’altare”, p. 100; Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, p. 4. 51 Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Quando e da chi fu modificata la tomba”, pp. 219–226, broadly accepted the tradition of Sixtus’s sealing of the tomb in 1476. Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, pp. 1–13, consolidated this position in response to Gatti’s 1983 monograph. 52 Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Il loculo sotto l’altare”, pp. 102–105; Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, p. 8. 53 Most fully developed by Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, pp. 9–10; however, the author’s attempt to connect the travertine slabs from the tomb with the “tribertini magni” requisitioned by Elias for the Basilica in 1239 needlessly complicates the issue. 54 Millozzi suggested the presence of a “volta a crociera”; ibid., p. 9.

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and subsequent reconstruction of the high altar platform, and Millozzi believed the present misalignment of the altar mensa to be a vestige of the Quattrocento reconstitution required by this thesis.55 For Marinangeli, Zaccaria and Millozzi, aspects of the archaeological evidence accorded remarkably well with one of the earliest visual sources for Francis’s burial—the illuminated ‘F’ initial in a thirteenth-century antiphonary from the Sacro Convento which depicts three crippled or lame supplicants before the Saint’s tomb (Fig. 5).56 In the miniature, Francis rests in an open sarcophagus within a vaulted chamber lit by lamps chained to the ceiling. The upper half of the initial is completed by a baldachin, apparently on a distinct architectural plane, which may represent an altar ciborium or some larger vaulted structure in schematic form.57 All the proponents of the more open reconstruction have argued that the Sacro Convento illumination proves the existence of an accessible subterranean chapel in the late thirteenth century which could admit small numbers of select visitors. This form of privileged access is held to explain the Podestà of Perugia’s request in 1260 for leave to go to Assisi “to venerate the body of Blessed Francis”.58 In the foreground, the three pilgrims crouch awkwardly on a rocky and uneven floor, which may have echoed the harsh surfaces of the subterranean chamber.59 No one would claim that the Saint’s body was visible in the manner indicated by the illumination, but the removal of the travertine slab

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Ibid., pp. 2–3, the altar mensa slopes downwards to the left (looking from the nave). 56 Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, cantorino 2, Ms. 1, fol. 235r. For this illumination see Giovanni Morello’s entry in The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi, ed. Giovanni Morello and Laurence B. Kanter (Milan, 1999), pp. 142–142, where it is dated to ca. 1280. 57 Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “La tomba del Santo secondo il sigillo detto di Frate Elia ed una miniatura del secolo XIII”, p. 222, believed that the upper half of the initial represents “con linee fortemente stilizzate” the vaults of the Lower Church, including nine stalls from the friars’ choir. The analysis of the seal in the same article is flawed, owing to the inaccurate drawing of the seal made in 1898, see Gatti, La tomba, p. 120. 58 Ettore Ricci, “Tommaso da Gorzano Podestà di Perugia alla tomba di S. Francesco”, Miscellanea francescana 34 (1934), pp. 42–45; the Podestà wished to go to Assisi “pro veneratione corporis beati Francischi”. 59 In The Treasury of Saint Francis, p. 142, Morello described the body of St. Francis “lying on a high catafalque, carved directly out of the rock”. The Saint’s green coffin does, however, appear to be distinct from the rocky floor. The harsh surface serves to emphasise the presence of the Collis Paradisi beneath the Basilica, see Gatti, La tomba, p. 102.


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could have permitted the veneration of Francis’s remains through the wrought iron grille. Indeed, the combination of metal cage and stone lid might suggest that this was exactly what the builders of the tomb had intended. “In loco firmissimo” Marinangeli, Zaccaria and Millozzi believed they had identified the vestiges of a genuine subterranean chapel, accessible until it was definitively sealed at some point after 1442, most likely by Sixtus IV in 1476.60 There are, however, compelling reasons to reject this proposition. The ‘F’ initial cannot be treated as a straightforward record of any early tomb arrangement in the Lower Church. Depictions of saints lying in their tombs constitute a representational convention by the later Middle Ages, and the Assisi illumination clearly draws on a generic iconography of supplication ad sanctum. An instructive contrast may be drawn with the mid thirteenth-century panel in the Basilica’s Treasury, which groups four of Francis’s post mortem miracles around a standing figure of the Saint. A careful rendering of the wooden arca at S. Giorgio in the scene to the upper left (Fig. 1) is balanced by two representations of the high altar in the Lower Church on the right hand side. In the lower of these two scenes the sides of the altar are cloaked by a richly worked silk altar frontal, but the miraculous exorcism above reveals the arcade below the mensa, replete with oil lamps inside the arches (Fig. 2). Many scholars have observed that the design of the high altar recalled contemporary tombs and shrines through the inclusion of an arcade, and underlighting the colonnade in this manner must have accentuated the sepulchral effect. Unlike the antiphonary initial, the Treasury panel was a public image, which was probably commissioned to hang in the Lower Church.61 The reference back to the wooden arca indicates that the

60 Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, p. 9, considered the chamber “non un loculo, dunque, ma un sacello, una vera cappella”. Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Le diverse opinioni”, p. 276, believed that the chamber “fu accessibile fin dal principio”. 61 The image has been linked to the consecration of the high altar in 1253, see William R. Cook, Images of St. Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to ca. 1320 in Italy: A Catalogue (Florence, 1999), cat. no. 27, pp. 62–63,

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painter was drawing a conscious parallel between the pilgrim’s experience in the Lower Church and the earlier arrangement in S. Giorgio. For both these reasons, the Treasury panel is a more trustworthy representation of the shrine’s public face, demonstrating that, for the vast majority of pilgrims to the Lower Church, the high altar would have stood for St. Francis’s tomb. There are also difficulties with the “open” interpretation of the archaeological evidence. Even allowing for the maximum floor area the proposed chamber would still have been too small to facilitate general access to the Saint’s sarcophagus, but a more fundamental problem is how visitors would have descended to the tomb. Wolfgang Schenkluhn has proposed the presence of a doorway at the base of the apsidal wall, which could have linked the Sacro Convento to a tomb arrangement below the Lower Church (Vasari, it will be remembered, had spoken of an old entrance that had been walled-up).62 This possibility was foreseen by Ugo Tarchi in his 1940 reconstruction of the apse exterior prior to Sixtus IV’s extensive renovation of the cloister area,63 while Edgar Hertlein later believed that he had found traces of an entrance to the tomb in the floor of the apse below the fifteenth-century choir stalls.64 A passageway giving access from the west would have evoked Early Christian confessio arrangements, notably the annular crypt below the apse of Old St. Peter’s.65 But Fea’s excavations found no trace of any conduit linking the burial loculus to

193. It was described over the door of the sacristy in the Lower Church in the 1570s see Fra’ Ludovico da Pietralunga. Descrizione della Basilica di S. Francesco d’Assisi. Introduzione, note al testo e commentario, ed. Pietro Scarpellini (Treviso, 1982), p. 79 (hereafter cited as Fra’ Ludovico). 62 Wolfgang Schenkluhn, S. Francesco in Assisi: Ecclesia specialis. Die Vision Papst Gregors IX von einer Erneuerung der Kirche (Darmstadt, 1991), pp. 29–30, and fig. 24 on p. 35; passages of disturbed stonework at the base of the apse indicate the position of the door. Schenkluhn, however, believed the opening to link the Sacro Convento directly with the apse of the Lower Church, rather than the tomb below. 63 Ugo Tarchi, L’arte medioevale nell’Umbria e nella Sabina (Milan, 1940), vol. 4, tavv. LXIV, LXV. 64 Edgar Hertlein, Die Basilika S. Francesco in Assisi. Gestalt—Bedeutung—Herkunft (Florence, 1964), p. 106; assessed by Schenkluhn, Ecclesia specialis, p. 144. Hertlein’s observation is impossible to verify following the re-paving of the apsidal area in 1960. An entrance from the choir was also proposed by Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Le diverse opinioni”, pp. 276–277. 65 The comparison with St. Peter’s is made by Schenkluhn, Ecclesia specialis, p. 144, although the author’s argument is complicated by his proposal for an elevated podium in the apse of the Lower Church (pp. 79–80; fig. 62).


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either the Lower Church or the Sacro Convento.66 The 1818 reports are quite specific on this point—the chamber was surrounded by solid rock on all sides. The burial of St. Clare in the nearby Basilica of S. Chiara can shed some further light on this point. Multiple similarities between their tombs indicate that Clare’s shrine (like her church) was designed as a pendant to Francis’s. Clare’s body had been interred below the high altar of S. Chiara in 1260 but her remains, like Francis’s, had been inaccessible for some time by the nineteenth century.67 A short excavation in 1850, inspired by the success of the 1818 campaign in the Lower Church, quickly discovered Clare’s sarcophagus set into the floor of a barrel-vaulted chamber beneath the crossing (Fig. 6). At some later date, this space was filled in with mortar and rubble, but otherwise it was remarkably undisturbed. The survival of a medieval barrel vault at S. Chiara may well support the presence of a similar vaulted chamber below the Lower Church, but Clare’s burial was certainly not accessible from the church above. The excavators in 1850 found no trace of a passage leading to Clare’s burial loculus, which was surrounded by solid rock on all sides.68 Moreover, Clare’s cadaver was firmly sealed within her sarcophagus, which was secured by two heavy iron bands and eight lead clasps.69 She was unequivocally concealed from view, even within the confines of her burial chamber. The comparison with S. Chiara suggests that Francis’s burial chamber was less accessible than Marinangeli and others have supposed, but it also indicates how this type of subterranean tomb could be physically and visually linked to the surface. The 1850 excavations in S. Chiara established that a shaft had connected Clare’s burial loculus to a grated opening (the so-called fenestella confessionis) set into the front of the high altar platform above (Figs. 6, 7). The function of the S. Chiara fenestella was reinforced by an accompanying inscription on the altar steps: “Hic iacet corpus S. Clare Virginis”.70

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Gatti, La tomba, pp. 146–149, 154. For Clare’s tomb see Marino Bigaroni, “Origine e sviluppo storico della chiesa”, in Marino Bigaroni, Hans-Rudolf Meier and Elvio Lunghi, La Basilica di S. Chiara in Assisi (Ponte S. Giovanni, PG, 1994), pp. 30–34. 68 Gatti, La tomba, pp. 105, 154, characterized the S. Chiara loculus as a “cella senza ingressi da nessun lato”. 69 Bigaroni, “Origine e sviluppo”, p. 32. 70 Ibid., p. 30. 67

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A very similar aperture, commonly known as the buca delle lampade, still exists in the Lower Church, set into the uppermost step of the altar platform facing the nave.71 The buca is prominent in sixteenth-century representations of the tomb, but is likely to be much older (Fig. 8).72 A 1771 engraving of the high altar denoted the grate as the “locus” in which Francis’s body lay, adding that three lamps burn there continuously (Fig. 9).73 The presence of lamps within the fenestella was earlier noted by Ludovico da Pietralunga in the 1570s and by other late sixteenth-century sources in the Sacro Convento archives.74 Furthermore, local documents published by Cesare Cenci record a lamp or “spera” below the high altar as early as 1446.75 The flickering light in the buca would have alerted the pilgrim approaching from the nave to the hidden space beneath the altar

71 With regard to the buca, Gatti, La tomba, p. 158, places some credence in an ambiguous reference from Papini which dated the opening of the aperture to 1509/10, but elsewhere (pp. 133–135) rejects the same passage for dating the construction of the altar platform and pergola to the same years. For Papini’s original comments see Notizie sicure (1822 edition), pp. 88, 207; (1824 edition) pp. 211–212, 218–219. 72 The grate before the high altar is emphasized in two representations of Francis’s shrine in Pietro Ridolfi, OFMConv., Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis libri tres (Venice, 1586), pp. 50r (“De liberatis a diversis infirmitatibus”), 250v (“De Admirabili Sepulchro in quo venerandum corpus B. Francisci conditum est”); both reproduced by Gatti, La tomba, fig. 17. The accuracy of some of the engravings that illustrate Ridolfi’s text is debatable, but the topographical representations of the Basilica (p. 247r), the Porziuncola (p. 252v) and La Verna (p. 262r) are all carefully observed—the second of the tomb scenes falls in the same section. 73 On the left-hand side the Latin key for ‘F’ reads: “Locus in quo est Corpus Serafici P.S. Francisci: ac tres dimisse lampades continuo ardentes”. The print illustrated Francesco Antonio Maria Righini’s, Provinciale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum S. Francisci Conventualium (Rome, 1771). 74 Ludovico da Pietralunga gave a detailed description of the buca: “Nel piano, nel quarto et ultimo gradile, dalla banda della navata della chiesa, overo intrata, gli è una pietra assai grandotta over tavola sotto la quale gli è uno sepulcro over grotta quasi sotto e presso la altare. Il vano . . . dove che de continuo gli arde una ad minus lampada, il quale li giova a molte infermità.: se acende per una finestra più longa che larga, nel ultimo et del mezzo del gradile o scalone . . .”, see Fra’ Ludovico, p. 50. The Libro degli Ordini de’Superiori from the 1590s referred to the buca as a “caverna” and stipulated that “la chiave della Caverna sotto l’Altare maggiore stia nella cassa delle tre chiavi, et il Lampadaro habbi solamente la chiave dello sportellino per acconciare la lampada”; cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 145. 75 Cesare Cenci, OFM., Documentazione di vita assisana 1300–1530, vol. 1 (Grottaferrata, 1974), p. 576: “de spera que est sub altare p. nostri Francisci” (1446); there is also an earlier notice “de altari maiori et spera S. Francisci” from 1438 (p. 538). The nature of the “spera” is clarified by later references to “socto l’altare dove arda la spera” (1461) and “pro lumine et spera ardenda ante corpus S. Francisci” (1509), cited by Cenci, Documentazione, vol. 2 (Grottaferrata, 1975), pp. 663, 982.


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platform. By 1405 the friars were selling oil near the high altar, presumably to elicit on the spot offerings by pilgrims.76 The fenestella itself would have given the devout viewer kneeling on the steps before the high altar a dim view into the vaulted chamber below, perhaps even a distant glimpse of the Saint’s sarcophagus. This was the closest that the average pilgrim to the Lower Church could hope to come to Francis’s remains. The interpretation of the textual sources is more problematic, but one salient fact does emerge—that the tradition of the closed tomb predates Eugenius’s 1442 letter, which was taken by Marinangeli, Zaccaria and Millozzi as a terminus post quem for the sealing of the tomb. Bartolomeo da Pisa provides two separate passages which indicate that the tomb was sealed and inaccessible by the 1390s. Even if one discounts both of these as later fifteenth-century interpolations, one can fall back on two sources that have, until now, been overlooked in the debates over the tomb.77 The first is Pero Tafur’s brief account of the tomb, already cited above. Tafur visited Assisi in the spring of 1436, six years before the Perugians sacked the town and appealed to Eugenius.78 It is inherently unlikely that his comments on Assisi are later insertions, for the Travels and Adventures have survived through a single copy in Salamanca, itself probably made from the author’s original manuscript.79 The text was isolated from the later evolution of Franciscan historiography, and—excepting the four sentences on Assisi—would have been of no interest to the Order. Paradoxically, the tangential nature of Tafur’s account makes him an especially valuable witness. He lodged at the Sacro Convento for three days with “a servant of

76 See Cenci, Documentazione, vol. 1, p. 287, citing a notarial act “in ecclesia S. Francisci, in loco ubi venditur oleum, prope altare magnum dicte ecclesie inferioris”. 77 Bartolomeo’s original manuscript does not survive. The earliest surviving copies date from the fifteenth century, and are thought to contain many interpolations, see the comments by the Quarrachi fathers in AF 4 (1906), pp. xxiv–xxxv; AF 5 (1912), pp. xlv–lxxxv; and Gatti, p. 170, note 36 with further bibliography. 78 Letts, Travels and Adventures, p. v; Tafur does not provide many firm dates in his chronicle, but from Assisi he proceeded directly to Venice, which he left on 17 May, 1436 after a thirty day stay. An approximate estimate would place Tafur in Assisi at the beginning of April in 1436. 79 Ibid., p. 1; the surviving manuscript in the Biblioteca Patrimonial dates from the eighteenth century, but faithfully copies the spelling, punctuation and layout of a fifteenth-century codex.

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our Cardinal of Castille who was a great friend of mine”, and was shown the Lower Church (presumably by the friars).80 His was not a hurried pilgrimage, and his sources seem to have been the friars themselves, but for Tafur the true location of the tomb was a secret, an arcanum entrusted only to the Pope, one of his cardinals and a single friar. Instead, “the place which they show” was surely the high altar of the Lower Church, perhaps even the buca delle lampade in the steps of the altar platform. Tafur’s comments are corroborated by an entry from the Sacro Convento’s archive, transcribed by Papini in 1824 but subsequently ignored by Gatti, Marinangeli and Zaccaria. According to Papini’s transcription, on 23 June, 1380, Fra Niccolò Vannini, senior Sacristan of the Basilica and later Custodian of the Sacro Convento, issued a certificate of pilgrimage to one Pietro di Giovanni, who thereby fulfilled by proxy the vow of the elderly Francesco d’Enrico.81 The stipulations for the completion of Pietro’s pilgrimage are revealing. He had attended a Mass in honour of St. Francis, and had “placed his hand on the altar beneath which lies the body of the Most Holy Father Francis, in the presence of a number of trustworthy friars from this convent”.82 His actions confirm that, for both pilgrims and friars, the high altar of the Lower Church stood for Francis’s shrine. Pietro di Giovanni touched the altar mensa as he might the Saint’s tomb. Legally and spiritually, he had fulfilled his obligation. *

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*

*

Ibid., p. 44. For this document see Papini, Notizie sicure (1822 edition), pp. 90, 205; (1824 edition), pp. 89, 216. The source is Archivio del Sacro Convento, Registri 372 (Entrate e uscite del Sacro Convento 1377–1447), fol. 1r. Niccolò Vannini was custodian of the Sacro Convento from 1382 to 1386, see John R.H. Moorman, Medieval Franciscan Houses (New York, 1983), p. 37. The phenomenon of vicarious pilgrimage is widely documented, and a number of Bolognese testaments specify pilgrimages by proxy to Assisi; see, for example, the 1289 bequest for “cuidam persone qui vadat ad terram Assixii ad perdonantiam” or that in 1296 for “uni bono homini qui visitet altare B. Francisci de Assisio”, both cited in AF 9 (1927), pp. 181, 350. 82 Papini, Notizie sicure (1822 edition), p. 205; (1824 edition) p. 216; “. . . et ibidem fecit legere devote unam Missam in honore S. Francisci, et ibidem obtulit munus suum ad Altare sub quo Corpus Sanctissimi Patris Francisci requiescit, praesentibus aliquibus fratribus fide dignis dicti Conventus”. The same act could also provoke miracles, see Francesco Bartoli’s description of the cure of a female pilgrim in 1308, “posita manu sua super altari in quo Corpus beati Francisci conditum requiescit”, in his treatise on the Porziuncola (1330–35), cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 99. 81


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It is simply impossible to resolve all the contradictions in the archaeological, literary and visual evidence, but some conclusions may be advanced with reasonable confidence. Whatever the difficulties during the actual translation, the 1230 burial was surely planned with some care, and the tomb should be regarded as a designed arrangement. The subterranean loculus may have been more spacious than Gatti allowed—on balance, the archaeological record points to a small chamber, cut out of the mountainside, only partially dressed in stone, and probably vaulted. The sarcophagus was placed across this chamber, secured within its iron cage, with a theoretically movable (albeit unbearably heavy) lid of travertine limestone. These qualifications, however, appear as incidental details beside the broader picture of a hermetic burial entirely divorced from the pilgrim’s experience of the Lower Church. The chamber was surrounded by solid rock on all sides, precluding the existence of a genuine entrance passageway. Its interior may have been filled with mortar and stone in the fifteenth century, but this would have had a marginal impact on the visibility of Francis’s remains. Tafur corroborates Bartolomeo da Pisa’s assertion that, before 1442, the tomb was either sealed, or—at the very most—was accessible only in extraordinary circumstances. The high altar was invariably termed the altar of Blessed Francis in local documents, and Padre Vannini’s certificate of pilgrimage confirms that the altar mensa was synonymous with the Saint’s shrine.83 The burial loculus below was signalled by the buca delle lampade, the oil lamps within the fenestella joining the lanterns around the altar block above in a chorus of flickering light, beckoning pilgrims in the nave towards the tomb.84 83 When they appealed to the Commune for assistance during the floods of July 1311, the friars of the Sacro Convento stated that the water was flowing “super altare ipsius b. Francisci”, cited by Gatti, La tomba, p. 134. In a letter from 1279, Nicholas IV recalled the healing of a blind man in 1232, who had been “ductus ad altare beati Francisci”, cited by Nessi, “La tomba e i documenti”, SFPI 60 (1960), p. 430. Further examples are found in Cenci, Documentazione, vol. 1, pp. 88, 147, 228. 84 The relationship between the buca and the other lamps around the tomb underlies a later seventeenth-century tale from the life of S. Giuseppe of Cupertino (†1663). While Giuseppe prayed at night before the high altar, a demon with iron shoes entered the Lower Church and extinguished all of the lamps around the altar, only for Francis to emerge from the tomb. Taking a flame from one of the lamps in the buca, the Saint then re-lit all of the lamps around the altar, driving the demon away in the process; cited by Papini, Notizie sicure (1824 edition), pp. 92, 218; original text in Acta Sanctorum Septembris, Tomus V (Antwerp, 1755), pp. 1033–1034.

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(ii) Francis’s tomb and the Lower Church The Opening of the Transept In the absence of an accessible crypt, the high altar of the Lower Church served as the devotional goal for pilgrims seeking Francis’s shrine. This situation placed conflicting demands on space in the transept and apse. As well as marking Francis’s tomb, the high altar functioned as the principal altar of the Lower Church, and a degree of decorum had to be maintained around the consecrated mensa, particularly during the celebration of Mass and other liturgical offices. The Lower Basilica also functioned as the conventual church for the friars of the Sacro Convento, and in the thirteenth century the requirements of monastic seclusion dictated the presence of a substantial marble choir screen which separated the crossing bay from the main body of the nave (Fig. 11; T). Irene Hueck has convincingly reconstructed this screen from its surviving fragments as a monumental two-storied structure, pierced only by three narrow doorways.85 Both the monastic fabric and the liturgical ritual of the Lower Church must have hindered the path of pilgrims to the high altar. Furthermore, it is likely that for much of the time women would have been prevented from advancing beyond the choir screen—this restriction is suggested by Angela of Foligno’s accounts of her visits to the Lower Church, and also by the representation of the Crib at Greccio in the St. Francis cycle, where the women gathered around the door of the screen are evidently forbidden from entering the sanctuary.86 Similar tensions are explicitly recorded in relation to the pre-1233 burial of St. Dominic in the floor of the cappella maggiore of S. Nicolò nelle Vigne in Bologna, close to that church’s high altar.87 A number of early Dominican sources express disquiet at the

85 Irene Hueck, “Der Lettner der Unterkirche von S. Francesco in Assisi”, Mitteilungen des kunsthistorisches Instituts in Florenz 28 (1984), pp. 173–202. Hueck (p. 199) dated the structure to ca. 1253. For a less monumental alternative to Hueck’s reconstruction see Jürgen Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von S. Francesco in Assisi (Werl/Westfalen, 1991), pp. 156–162. 86 For this reading of the Crib at Greccio as a reflection of the Lower Church see Pietro Scarpellini, “Assisi e i suoi monumenti nella pittura dei secoli XIII–XIV” in Assisi al tempo di S. Francesco: atti del V Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 13–16 ottobre 1977; Società internazionale di studi francescani (Assisi, 1978), pp. 101–108. 87 For Dominic’s tomb see Joanna Cannon, “Dominican Patronage of the Arts


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devotions and offerings of the faithful, the clear implication being that pilgrimage to the tomb was disrupting the liturgical life of the church.88 In Bologna, the Preaching Friars resolved the problem in 1233 by relocating St. Dominic’s shrine to the lay side of the choir screen in their new church of S. Domenico, thereby freeing the upper nave and high altar for the friars’ use.89 In the Lower Church at Assisi, the Franciscans adopted a very different approach. Around 1300 they took the radical step of dismantling the choir screen in the nave, salvaging some sections to construct a small cantoria on the left side of the nave.90 At roughly the same time the nave walls were pierced to allow the construction of an impressive series of private chapels, satisfying the desire of prominent families and individuals for burial ad sanctum.91 Those chapels on the north side of the church were also connected by a sequence of doorways that together formed a passageway running parallel to the main nave. The creation of this “side-aisle”, together with the removal of the choir screen, must have greatly eased access to the high altar, allowing pilgrims to circulate around the transept area. As Janet Robson demonstrates elsewhere in this volume, the frescoes in the transept and the Magdalen

in Central Italy ca. 1220–c. 1320: The Provincia Romana”, Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1980, pp. 169–175; Anita Fiderer Moskowitz, Nicola Pisano’s Arca di S. Domenico and Its Legacy (London, 1994). 88 Jordan of Saxony described how the faithful visiting the church “hung wax effigies of eyes, hands, feet and other bodily parts over the tomb of the Blessed” which were then torn down and smashed by the friars, see Venturino Alce, “Il convento di S. Domenico in Bologna nel secolo XIII”, Culta Bononia 4 (1972), p. 151. 89 G.G. Meersseman, OP., “L’architecture dominicaine au XIIIe siècle: Législation et pratique”, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 16 (1946), pp. 155–156; “dont le culte populaire pouvait désormais se dérouler librement sans déranger la liturgie”. Joanna Cannon presented substantial new research on Dominican shrines in a paper entitled “Founders and Followers II: The Burial and Commemoration of Saints and Beati among the Dominicans of central Italy” at the Association of Art Historians’ annual conference of 2000, with special emphasis on the opportunities for access and circulation afforded by free-standing tombs on the model of Dominic’s shrine. 90 Hueck, “Der Lettner”, p. 176, observed that the screen was probably dismantled less then fifty years after its construction. The original piscinae and ambries for the side altars set on the screen’s upper storey can still be seen high on the walls in the first bay of the nave. Other sections from the screen seem to have been reused as a revetment above the altar in the Magdalen chapel. 91 For the construction of the side chapels see Irene Hueck, “Die Kapellen der Basilika S. Francesco in Assisi: die Auftraggeber und die Franziskaner”, in Patronage and Public in the Trecento, Proceedings of the St. Lambrecht Symposium, Abtei St. Lambrecht, Styria, 16–19 July, 1984, ed. Vincent Moleta (Florence, 1986), pp. 81–104.

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Chapel were conceived as an edifying accompaniment for the pilgrim’s progress around the high altar.92 While the removal of the choir screen undoubtedly improved access to the transept, it also brought the functional contradiction of the high altar platform—now exposed at the centre of the crossing— into sharper focus. Pilgrims could not be left to climb around or over the altar mensa as they might do with a genuine arca or raised sarcophagus.93 This dilemma was resolved by the construction of a colonnade or pergola around the high altar platform, comprising twelve columns topped by an architrave, with its arcade closed by elaborate wrought-iron grates.94 The pergola in the Lower Church is sometimes associated with Sixtus IV’s renovations of the 1470s, but it can be convincingly dated to the beginning of the fourteenth century. In functional terms, its construction was consequent on the demolition of the choir screen, and must have been foreseen before the screen was taken down. As with the cantoria, the pergola very likely reused decorative elements from the choir screen’s rich marble and cosmati façade.95 Fragments of the Lower Church pergola are today scattered throughout the Sacro Convento, and the recomposition of its original structure is greatly complicated by the controversial renovation campaign led by Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle in 1870–71. Until then the pergola had survived in situ in the Lower Church, but Cavalcaselle reconstructed the colonnade around the high altar of the Upper Church, where it appears in the earliest photographs of the interior.96 When

92

See Robson in this volume, pp. 39–70. Iron cancelli were sometimes added to free-standing, elevated tombs to discourage over-zealous devotion. For example, a grille was placed around St. Dominic’s tomb in 1288, see Alce, “Il convento”, p. 167. 94 For the pergola in the Lower Church see Bigaroni, “Origine e sviluppo”, pp. 26–28. 95 A fragment of the pergola architrave is reproduced by Hueck, “Der Lettner”, p. 184, fig. 9, although the author excludes it from her reconstruction of the choir screen due to discrepancies in dimensions (pp. 180–181). 96 For Cavalcaselle’s cavalier campaign of restoration see Irene Hueck, “La Basilica francescana di Assisi nell’Ottocento: alcuni documenti su restauri progettati ed interventi eseguiti”, Bollettino d’arte 66, no. 12 (October–December, 1981), pp. 143–152; see fig. 5 for a photograph of the Upper Church with the pergola around the high altar. The acrimonious correspondence over Cavalcaselle’s historicism at Assisi is gathered together in Dibattimento del giornalismo italiano intorno alla rimozione del coro di Maestro Domenico da S. Severino dalla Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi (Perugia, 1873), esp. pp. 139–145 for Luigi Carattoli’s criticisms in the Osservatore Romano on the 93


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Cavalcaselle’s reckless interventions were reversed at the end of the nineteenth century, the pergola was not returned to the Lower Church. Instead, sections of the colonnade were inserted into the upper storey of the Chiostro dei Morti (Fig. 10), while some of the wrought-iron cancelli were employed to close off the main cloister of the Sacro Convento.97 The pergola’s basic structure can be deduced from the 1771 engraving of the high altar platform, although this omits the cancelli and updates certain passages of ornament to suit eighteenthcentury taste (Fig. 9). For example, the surviving fragments and early photographic evidence establish that the architrave bore intricate bands of cosmati inlay rather than the foliate decoration illustrated in the 1771 print.98 The pergola has sometimes been dated to Sixtus IV’s rebuilding work in the 1470s, but several factors indicate that the precinct was already in place by the early fourteenth century.99 On the basis of the cosmati decoration and carved elements, Pietro Scarpellini has dated the surviving fragments in the Chiostro dei Morti to the end of the thirteenth century.100 The “crates ferreas” described around the high altar in the Lower Church by Fra Francesco Bartoli in the 1330s probably refer to the colonnade’s iron cancelli.101 The design and manufacture of the cancelli themselves, with their hot-hammered scrollwork, can be dated to the same period.102 A removal of the pergola from the Lower Church. Cavalcaselle, who had first dismissed the pergola as a seventeenth-century addition, believed he had identified signs of its original collocation around the high altar of the Upper Church. 97 Some of the architrave fragments are now hidden behind the conservation cabinets in the Chiostro dei Morti; I am grateful to Padre Gerhard Ruf of the Sacro Convento for the opportunity to examine the Chiostro dei Morti and the cancelli in the main cloister. 98 Vasari described the pergola accordingly; “intorno al detto altare sono grate di ferro grandissime, con ricchi ornamenti di marmo e di musaico . . .”; Le vite, vol. 2, p. 51. 99 Marinangeli-Zaccaria, “Le diverse opinioni”, pp. 275–276; Millozzi, “L’altare maggiore”, pp. 12–13; the later dating derives from Pietralunga’s attribution of the iron cancelli to Maestro Gasperino da Lugano, documented in Assisi from 1463 onwards, see Fra’ Ludovico, p. 49. In his commentary Scarpellini (pp. 259–260) argued that the surviving fragments are much too old to be Gasparino’s work, and that the Lombard had probably restored an existing structure. 100 See Scarpellini’s commentary to Pietralunga’s text, Fra’ Ludovico, p. 259. 101 Fratris Francisci Bartholi de Assisio. Tractatus de Indulgentia S. Mariae de Portiuncola, ed. Paul Sabatier (Paris 1900), p. 83; “Quumque frater . . . post crates ferreas altaris beati patris nostri Francisci oraret”. 102 For English grilles with similar back-to-back scroll designs produced during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Jane Geddes, Medieval Decorative Ironwork in England (London, 1999), pp. 141–145.

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further point of reference is provided by the analogous pergola that still stands around the high altar in the Basilica of S. Chiara (Fig. 7).103 The figurative and foliate carvings on the capitals of the Clarissan precinct indicate a date around 1300, and the colonnade in S. Chiara is likely to have been modelled on that in the Lower Church.104 In S. Chiara and the Lower Church the two pergolae functioned as protective cages, shielding their respective high altars from the devotional energy expended on the tombs below. Their form was dictated by the inherent difficulties of focusing both relic cult and liturgical ritual on a single point in the church interior. With its dense wrought-iron cancelli, the pergola protected the high altar of the Lower Church on all sides, leaving only the central bay on the nave side free for pilgrims to venerate and approach the high altar and the buca delle lampade.105 The manner in which the cancelli ringed the altar, thereby transforming it into a free-standing precinct, strongly suggests that pilgrims could circulate around the altar platform. Fra Francesco Bartoli described friars praying at the tomb “post crates ferreas”, which may refer to the area immediately behind the high altar.106 The case for the transformation of the entire transept area into a circulatory space around the tomb is supported by some related alterations to the layout of the Lower Church, also effected

103 For a comparison of the two pergolae in Assisi see Bigaroni, “Origine e sviluppo”, pp. 24–30; and also Hans-Rudolf Meier’s essay, “Protomonastero e chiesa di pellegrinaggio”, in the same volume, pp. 126–130. 104 For the dating of the S. Chiara capitals to the beginning of the fourteenth century, and a 1319 reference to “cancellos ferros” in the church, see Meier, “Protomonastero”, pp. 127–129. The primacy of the S. Chiara pergola, suggested by Bigaroni (p. 28), seems the less likely path of influence. 105 The opening in the nave side of the colonnade is indicated by a number of later representations of the pergola in the Lower Church, see for example Giovambattista Mariani’s 1821 engraving reproduced by Bigaroni, “Origine e sviluppo”, p. 27. 106 The choir stalls constructed between 1467 and 1471, which today fill the apse, probably replace an earlier choir precinct. A choir in the Lower Church is documented from 1342, see Cenci, Documentazione, vol. 1, p. 88. However, two notarial acts from 1430 and 1434 were redacted “in choro dicte ecclesie, ante altare magnum dicte ecclesie inferioris”; ibid., pp. 487, 513. This should probably be read as the space between the high altar and an apsidal choir, rather than a precinct in the upper nave. A payment in 1447 for “cortine a pie’ del coro del convento” (p. 585) may indicate that fabric hangings could divide the choir from the transept area. It is assumed here that, as today, the choir would not have impeded the passage of pilgrims behind the high altar. I would follow Hueck, “Der Lettner”, p. 191, in placing the thirteenth-century choir between the original choir screen and the high altar.


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around the turn of the thirteenth century. Little is known of the thirteenth-century decoration of the transept and crossing, from which Cimabue’s Virgin and Child Enthroned with St. Francis represents an isolated survival. Pietralunga implied a more extensive scheme when he remarked of Cimabue’s fresco that “they say it was not destroyed like the others”, and traces of thirteenth-century frescoed ornament are still visible today around the base of the crossing vault.107 The precise arrangement of the side altars before 1300 is also unclear, but it is likely that one was set below the Cimabue around the mid point of the north transept’s east wall, mirroring the orientation of the side altars in the Upper Church above.108 All of this was swept away in the early fourteenth century, when the two side altars dedicated to St. John the Evangelist (south transept) and St. Elizabeth of Hungary (north transept) were pushed into the far corners of their respective bays (Fig. 11; JE, E). Pietro Lorenzetti’s famous fictive bench surely reflects the cramped location of the St. John altar in the north-eastern corner of the north transept (Figs. 12 and 13), while the two fresco altarpieces by Lorenzetti and Simone Martini were restricted to low retables, freeing the walls above for an integrated programme of narrative cycles that traversed the entire transept.109 The repositioning of the two side altars freed the transept from liturgical clutter, thereby minimising any disruption to the circulation of pilgrims around the high altar. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, taken together, the various alterations made to the Lower Church resulted from a coherent plan to improve access to the transept area, set in train in the final years of the thirteenth century. In his 1288 bull Reducentes ad sedulae, the Franciscan Pope Nicholas IV had linked the reconstruction and

107

Fra’ Ludovico, p. 70: “Dicano che non fu guasto comme li altri”. The presence of such an altar may be suggested by the terms of Puccio di Ventura’s testament of 1300, discussed by Hueck, “Die Kapellen”, pp. 86–87; Silvestro Nessi, La Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi e la sua documentazione storica (Assisi, 1994), pp. 429, 448–449. An altar dedicated to the Immaculate Conception was later installed below the Cimabue in the fifteenth century, see Nessi, p. 428. 109 For the side altars see Scarpellini’s commentary in Fra’ Ludovico, pp. 323–326 (St. Elizabeth); 328–340 (St. John the Evangelist and south transept); for Simone Martini’s fresco altarpiece for the St. Elizabeth chapel see also Adrian S. Hoch, “Beata Stirps, Royal Patronage and the Identification of the Sainted Rulers in the St. Elizabeth Chapel at Assisi”, Art History 15 (1992), pp. 279–295. A 1360 reference to “una chiave per la capella di Santa Elisabetta” may suggest that the chapel had an altar enclosure by that date, see Nessi, La Basilica, p. 427. 108

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enlargement of the Basilica of San Francesco to the large numbers of friars and pilgrims that were flocking to Assisi.110 Bruno Zanardi and others have noted that Nicholas’s direction of alms to “. . . reparari, aedificare, emendari, ampliari . . .” the Basilica must refer to the structural work planned for the Lower Church, rather than the completion of the pictorial scheme upstairs.111 The rationale behind this rearrangement must have been largely pragmatic. Some form of ambulatory would have represented a more elegant architectural solution, but the restricted site of the Collis Paradisi offered no opportunity for an ambitious extension to the Basilica, nor was there room to relocate the shrine elsewhere within the Lower Church.112 At this date, the removal of a choir screen was an extraordinary measure, and the needs of the conventual liturgy were hereby sacrificed in the interests of Francis’s shrine.113 In terms of sacred space, the new arrangement established the high altar and—by association—the Saint’s tomb as the visual focus for the entire Lower Church in a manner that had not been foreseen by the original thirteenth-century architecture.

110 Bullarium Franciscanum, vol. 4, pp. 22–23: “. . . innumera fratrum vestri Ordinis confluit multitudo, quodque Asisii civitas brevi concluditur spatio . . .” 111 Bruno Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini: La questione di Assisi e il cantiere medievale della pittura a fresco (Milan, 2002), p. 212. 112 In the twelfth century, Abbot Suger had famously eased the problems of access and circulation at St. Denis through architectural expansion, notably the construction of a spacious ambulatory. Suger had vividly described the earlier overcrowding of pilgrims in his De Consecratione, see Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London, 1996), pp. 18–20. Giovanni Lorenzoni has suggested that between 1310 and 1350, St. Anthony of Padua’s tomb was located in the central radial chapel of the Santo, with the church’s ambulatory constructed specifically for the purpose of easing the flow of pilgrims to and from his tomb, cited by Sarah Blake McHam, The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture (Cambridge, 1994), p. 11. 113 For the early presence of choir screens or tramezzi in Italian mendicant churches see Donal Cooper, “In medio ecclesiae: Screens, Crucifixes and Shrines in the Franciscan Church Interior in Italy ca. 1230–ca. 1400”, Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2000, pp. 41–105. The removal of the choir screen in the Lower Church, together with the papal arrangement of the Upper Church, may have influenced more open liturgical arrangements in several other Franciscan churches belonging to the Order’s Umbrian province, see Donal Cooper, “Franciscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double-Sided Altarpieces in Pre-Tridentine Umbria”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 64 (2001), pp. 1–54.


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Pilgrimage and Thaumaturgy at Assisi Delineating a plan, however, is not the same as discerning the motivation behind it. The reconstruction of the Lower Church must have been carried forward at enormous expense, not to mention the resulting disruption to the shrine and the Sacro Convento. Why was such a comprehensive programme of renewal deemed necessary? In 1288 Nicholas had linked the reconstruction of the Basilica to the needs of pilgrims, but the reorganisation of the transept in the Lower Church was arguably more than an exercise in crowd control. There is circumstantial evidence that the prior arrangement had not proved conducive to a flourishing relic cult. In his Vita Prima of 1228–9, Thomas of Celano had celebrated the “new miracles that are constantly occurring at [Francis’s] tomb, and, as the prayers increase, remarkable aid is given to body and soul. The blind recover sight, the deaf regain hearing, the lame walk again, the mute speak, those with gout jump, lepers are cleansed, those with swelling see it reduced, and those suffering the burden of many different diseases obtain the relief for which they have longed. His dead body heals living bodies, just as when living it raised dead souls”.114 This litany of thaumaturgical achievement met an expected criterion for a saint of Francis’s stature. Celano, however, was writing prior to the 1230 translation and these miracles all occurred at the humble wooden shrine in S. Giorgio. The character of Celano’s later Tractatus de Miraculis Beati Francisci (1250–52) is very different, with few post mortem miracles described before the Saint’s tomb.115 The imbalance is even more pronounced in the collection of miracles appended to Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, while the fresco cycle of Francis’s life painted in the Upper Church during the 1290s omits any direct reference to the Saint’s shrine in the Lower Church below.116 Unlike the wooden shrine in S. Giorgio

114

Early Documents 1, pp. 290–291. See Early Documents 2, pp. 421 (for a commitment to visit the shrine); 423 (the revival of the boy at Suessa, see below note 130); 445 (the healing of Brother Giacomo of Iseo immediately after the 1230 translation); 454 (Pietro of Foligno touches Francis’s tomb in thanks for his exorcism); 455 (a possessed girl from Norcia is freed before the altar of St. Francis which she then kisses); 465 (healing of Lord Trasmondo Anibaldi’s companion before Francis’s tomb); the text also includes some of the miracles from Celano’s first life which related to the S. Giorgio tomb, see pp. 458–460. 116 For the instances in Bonaventure’s text see Early Documents 2, pp. 658 (the 115

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(which was faithfully depicted on a number of the early Vita panels: Fig. 1) the high altar of the Lower Church developed no iconographic tradition of its own, appearing only on the Tesoro panel cited above (Fig. 2), and a closely related image now in the Vatican.117 The reasons behind this change in emphasis were undoubtedly complex, but the unresponsive nature of the Lower Church arrangement during the thirteenth century is implied by a curious tradition associated with the nearby tomb of Brother William of England. William (†ca. 1232) was one of Francis’s first companions, and was buried with several of his early confrères in the right transept of the Lower Church, close to the high altar (Fig. 11; W). William’s tomb, however, seems quickly to have outshone Francis’s in terms of post mortem miracles. The resulting embarrassment was such that Elias of Cortona, then Minister General, felt moved to “approach his tomb and admonish . . . the deceased not to detract from the glory of St. Francis with his miracles. From that time [William] worked no more miracles”.118 This extraordinary situation can only reflect a perceived lack of thaumaturgical efficacy on the part of Francis’s tomb. Furthermore, by the late thirteenth century, the Basilica was no longer the sole—or even the major—focus for pilgrimage at Assisi. Thanks to a number of recent studies, it is finally becoming possible to set St. Francis’s shrine within wider networks of pilgrimage in central Italy and beyond.119 The emerging picture stresses the raising of the boy at Suessa, see below note 130); 660–661 (the miraculous recovery of a woman struck by a stone from the pulpit in the Lower Church, see below note 128); 676 (a commitment to go in person on pilgrimage to Francis’s tomb by Renaud, a priest from Poitiers). Bonaventure’s text also includes two miracles from Celano’s first life concerning the S. Giorgio tomb (p. 675). 117 Cook, Images, pp. 62–63, 192–193. 118 From the Chronica XXIV Generalium; AF 3 (1897), p. 217; “ad eius sepulcrum accedens praecepit cum magna confidentia et fide mortuo, ne cum suis miraculis sancti Patris Francisci gloriam offuscaret. Qui ex tunc nulla miracula fecit”. A similar reading of the William story in relation to the scarcity of miracles in the Lower Church has recently been advanced by Chiara Frugoni, “L’Ombra della Porziuncola nella Basilica Superiore di Assisi”, Mitteilungen des kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz 45 (2001), pp. 353–361. 119 See, for example, Paolo Caucci von Saucken, “Vie di pellegrinaggio verso Assisi”, in Assisi anno 1300, ed. Stefano Brufani and Enrico Menestò (S. Maria degli Angeli, 2002), pp. 249–266; as well as Mario Sensi’s essay, “Il pelegrinaggio al Perdono di Assisi e la tavola di prete Ilario di Viterbo”, in the same volume, pp. 267–326. For an overview of pilgrimage in Umbria, see Mario Sensi, “Le vie e la civiltà dei pellegrinaggi nell’Italia centrale: L’esempio umbro”, in Le vie e la civiltà dei pellegrinaggi nell’Italia centrale. Atti del convegno di studio, Ascoli Piceno, 21–22 maggio, 1999, ed. Enrico Menestò (Ascoli Piceno, 2000), pp. 111–131.


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growing importance of the Porziuncola over this period, as the plenary indulgence granted by Honorius III to St. Francis for the church of S. Maria degli Angeli gradually gained popular acceptance.120 The feast of the Perdono on 2 August became the cause of mass pilgrimage to Assisi, and Nicholas IV had already set the Porziuncola on a par with the Basilica in his 1288 bull.121 In 1313, when Angelo Clareno sought a Franciscan analogy for the mass fervour enveloping Peter John Olivi’s tomb in Narbonne, he cited the crowds that gathered “in festo Sancte Marie de Portiuncola” rather than those venerating Francis’s tomb in the Basilica.122 The Porziuncola and the Basilica were perceived very differently by Franciscan writers, and they came to represent conflicting ideals of conventual life and worship. This nascent rivalry would later be institutionalised as the two shrines were given to different branches of the Order, but it is already evident in some of the miracle stories collected by Francesco Bartoli.123 The physical reconfiguration of the transept area in the Lower Church in the years around 1300, followed by the subsequent renewal of the accompanying pictorial decoration, represented a concerted effort to re-establish the tomb and its surroundings as the fulcrum for Francis’s cult in Assisi. The impetus for this unprecedented programme of works had complex origins. It reflected not only the numerical pressure of pilgrims, but also the perceived need to transform the pilgrim’s experience of the tomb, at a time when the Basilica’s claim to Francis’s powers of intercession needed to be reasserted in the face of the popular appeal of the Perdono indulgence at the Porziuncola.

120

For the Porziuncola indulgence see now Mario Sensi, Il Perdono di Assisi (S. Maria degli Angeli, 2002), esp. pp. 83–86 for the important role played by the Franciscan Bishop of Assisi, Teobaldo Pontano, in promoting the Perdono at the end of the thirteenth century. 121 Bullarium Franciscanum, vol. 4, pp. 22–23: “. . . ad eam [the Basilica], in qua ipsius sancti corpus gloriosissimum requiescit, ac etiam ad ecclesiam S. Marie de Portiuncula . . .” 122 For Clareno’s text see Franz Ehrle, SJ., “Die Spiritualen”, Archiv für Litteratur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters 1 (Berlin, 1885), p. 544. 123 See, for example, the exorcism at the Portiuncola of a woman who had earlier sought release in the Basilica without success, see Tractatus de Indulgentia, pp. 62–63.

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donal cooper Conclusion

From its inception in 1230 the shrine of St. Francis at Assisi had to reconcile the demands of pilgrimage and popular devotion with the needs of a major monastic complex. In developing the Lower Church, the friars were largely constrained by the architectural choices made during the building of the double basilica. Moreover, the original decision to bury Francis beneath the high altar in imitation of older Roman practice was perpetuated and cemented by the fear that his remains would be removed from Assisi by force. Francis’s body therefore remained physically and visually separated from the flow of pilgrims in the Lower Church throughout the medieval period. This distance, coupled with the insistence that the tomb contained the Saint’s whole and undivided body, resulted in a cult shorn of major relics. Contemporary responses to Francis’s shrine can be better gauged through a comparison with other Italian shrines in the thirteenth century. It is likely that Francis’s 1230 burial below the high altar at Assisi was intended to evoke Early Christian martyr burials, befitting the Saint’s status as the founder of a new apostolate. In this respect, however, Francis’s tomb ran counter to the dominant trends in thirteenth-century shrine provision. The elevated arrangement conceived in 1233 for the new tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna represented a far more influential prototype.124 Raised tombs bequeathed due sta-

124 The contrast between this arrangement and the tomb of St. Francis was highlighted by Cannon, 1980, p. 172; “The general Italian practice had been [before 1233] to hide venerated bodies and relics away in crypts or behind screens and enclosures: even St. Francis was probably buried in this way. The Dominicans chose to make their founder’s tomb visible and accessible to pilgrims”. As well as posing problems for the proper functioning of the church, Dominic’s initial burial in the floor of S. Nicolò nelle Vigne was now perceived as unworthy (compare Peter Ferrandus’s comment that “it was seen as unsuitable that the bones of his body should be set in the ground beneath our feet” with Humbert of Romans justification for the new 1233 arrangement: “. . . since the sanctity of the holy man could no longer be hidden . . . his body, which had hitherto resided in a humble tomb, had to be moved with honour to a higher place”; both cited by Cannon, p. 170). Elevated tombs were often related to Luke 11:33, “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place . . . but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light”; burials below high altars to the vision of the martyrs beneath the altar from Revelations 6:9. This material will be developed further in Cannon’s forthcoming book, Art and Order. The Dominicans of Central Italy and Visual Culture in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.


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tus to holy bodies and facilitated contemporary supplicatory and votive practices. Frequently placed to the west of choir screens (as in Bologna), this new generation of shrines eased lay access and avoided disruption to the liturgy. The tomb of St. Anthony in the Santo at Padua followed this model, as did the shrines of many Franciscan beati across central Italy.125 While Francis’s own vita inspired the new biographies of these holy men and women, his tomb offered no such template for their cults. The atypical nature of Francis’s shrine in relation to other mendicant examples is fundamental for any understanding of the evolving transept arrangement in the Lower Church. Even before 1442, the tomb’s inaccessibility would surprise Pero Tafur, while Bartolomeo da Pisa was drawn to rationalise the sealed burial through its conformity to the tomb of Christ. Scholarly efforts to reconstruct Francis’s tomb have consistently focused on the concealment of the Saint’s remains. This article has argued that a concerted attempt was made around the year 1300 to render the shrine more open, but even here the available options were dictated by the initial choices made in 1230. Unusual circumstances provoked unique solutions—the demolition of a choir screen in a monastic church, and the construction of a pergola around the high altar that (S. Chiara aside) finds only the most generic analogies in Italian church furniture from the period. *

*

*

Of course, the most remarkable resolution of the problems presented by Francis’s shrine lay in the creation of a pictorial programme of unprecedented scope and complexity. A new reading of the transept frescoes, assuming the viewpoint of the pilgrim, is advanced by Janet Robson elsewhere in this volume, although some sections of the programme—above all the Vele—continue to resist

125 For the successive burials of St. Anthony see Blake McHam, The Chapel of St. Anthony, pp. 10–13; Anthony was placed in an elevated tomb in 1263, although this was initially beside the high altar of his incomplete Basilica. His tomb was located in the left transept, to the west of the choir screen, by 1350 at the latest. The Santo’s ambulatory may have been constructed to facilitate access to an intermediate burial in the central radial chapel, see above, note 112. Even in those instances where the Franciscans opted for burials below high altars, the remains seem to have been visible and accessible. For the arrangements at Sansepolcro and Città di Castello see Donal Cooper, “Spinello Aretino in Città di Castello: The lost model for Sassetta’s Sansepolcro polyptych”, Apollo 154 (August, 2001), pp. 22–29.

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art historical interpretation.126 These cycles were created in dialogue with the tomb, and over time they came to participate in the traditions that surrounded the shrine. The surviving documentation only provides a partial view of what must have been an intricate topography of miraculous connotations, but Pietro Lorenzetti’s fresco in the south transept may well have been the miraculous, bleeding image of the Stigmatisation specified in the archives of the Sacro Convento. Blood from this fresco was collected in a linen towel that was recorded amongst the Basilica’s relics by the 1590s.127 The stone capital that had tumbled from the choir screen of the Lower Church in the mid-thirteenth century, resulting in Francis’s miraculous revival of a woman struck by its fall, was hung above the high altar (by the 1570s at the latest, but possibly much earlier).128 The suspended piece of masonry would have echoed the similar miracle worked by the Saint amidst the rubble at Suessa, commemorated in two frescoes in the north transept.129 The Suessa miracle was in turn linked to the high altar of the Lower Church through the offerings vowed to the altar by the mother of the child revived by Francis.130 The

126

Robson, pp. 39–70. The topographical record of the Lower Church compiled for the then Minister General, Filippo Gesualdo, in 1597 recorded “un panno macchiato di sangue, quale uscí in gran copia da una imagine delle stimmate di S. Francesco dipinta in muro”, Archivio del Sacro Convento, Registri 24, fol. 46v. If this notice is read narrowly to refer to a fresco of the Stigmatisation in the Basilica (as opposed to a non-specific image of St. Francis bearing the Stigmata) then Lorenzetti’s transept fresco and the analogous scene in the St. Francis Cycle are the only credible candidates. 128 In the 1570s, Pietralunga described the stone (now in the Sacristy in the Lower Church) hanging on an iron chain “nella volta a man dextra”; Fra’ Ludovico, pp. 48–49. Several years later, Gesualdo’s 1597 description places the stone over the high altar: “al presente giorno si vede appicata con una catena di ferro alla volta dell’altare maggiore”, Archivio del Sacro Convento, Registri 24, fol. 53r. The capital, replete with iron ring, is now kept in the Basilica’s inner sacristy, it is illustrated by Hueck, “Der Lettner”, p. 185, fig. 11. Frugoni, “L’Ombra della Porziuncola”, p. 360, has dated the miracle to 1235. 129 The two Suessa episodes are discussed in greater detail by Robson, pp. 39– 70. The post mortem miracle scenes were among the first elements of the new transept scheme to be started, and were probably left half finished for several years following 1297, for their dating see Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 194–197. 130 In Celano’s account, the mother promised to wreathe Francis’s altar with silver thread and to cover it with a new altar cloth, while Bonaventure mentions only the altar cloth. This element of the story may intend an altar in a Franciscan church in Suessa or nearby, but both texts do not specify its identity beyond “the altar of blessed Francis”, and it is likely that by the end of the thirteenth century this would have been read to refer to the altar in the Lower Church, see Early Documents 2, 127


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mensa of the high altar had, according to Franciscan tradition, a miraculous heritage of its own, for it was commonly identified with the great stone from Constantinople mentioned in the early miracle collections.131 As the great monolith was being transported overland from Ancona to Assisi it crushed a labourer, only for Francis to raise the stone and the man to emerge unharmed.132 Perhaps the most striking correspondence lies between the lost early fourteenth-century fresco in the apse of the Lower Church and the later legends of St. Francis standing upright over his tomb, facing east towards the rising sun with light shining from the Stigmata. As reconstructed by Elvio Lunghi from Pietralunga’s description, the central figure of St. Francis on the apse vault was the prototype for a long iconographic tradition portraying the Saint in the guise of alter Christus.133 Before the destruction of the apse fresco in 1623, Francis stood over his tomb, facing east, probably with rays of gold marking the wounds of Christ on his body.134 This was the image that pilgrims and friars would have seen as they looked up from kneeling on the steps before the high altar. Just as the needs of the tomb and its pilgrims dictated the organisation of the surrounding frescoes, so the same images could mould the myths through which the passing public perceived Francis’s enigmatic tomb.

pp. 423, 658. The practice of encircling a tomb with precious metal or wax tapers is well attested in late medieval miracula collections, see Cannon and Vauchez, Margherita of Cortona, pp. 57–60 and Cooper, “Qui Perusii”, p. 241. The wreathing of the altar in the Lower Church would be a further indication of contemporary votive practices being accommodated by the altar/tomb arrangement of Francis’s shrine. 131 Gatti, La tomba, p. 106. 132 The story is included amongst the miracles appended to Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, see Early Documents 2, pp. 661–662. However, in his Tractatus de miraculis, Thomas of Celano specified that the stone was for the fountain of St. Francis in Assisi. This episode is preceded by a similar accident involving an altar mensa in Sicily, and some conflation of the two miracles may have occurred over time, see Early Documents 2, pp. 428–429. 133 Elvio Lunghi, “La perduta decorazione trecentesca nell’abside della chiesa inferiore del S. Francesco ad Assisi”, Collectanea franciscana 66 (1996), pp. 479–510. The medieval image, which was unfinished in its lower portion, was replaced in 1623 by Cesare Sermei’s Last Judgement. 134 Pietralunga did not specify such rays in his description, but they appear in the earliest images which reproduce the so-called alter Christus gesture, for example the representation of St. Francis on the predella of Giotto’s Baroncelli altarpiece, and consistently thereafter.

THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS: REINTERPRETING THE TRECENTO FRESCO PROGRAMME IN THE LOWER CHURCH AT ASSISI Janet Robson

In the twenty-first century, as much as in the fourteenth, the tomb of Saint Francis is the goal of the pilgrim who enters the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. The body of the Saint has lain beneath the high altar of the Lower Church since 1230, but the arrangements for pilgrims visiting the shrine have undergone numerous changes in the interim. The modern pilgrim descends the stairs placed about halfway down the nave, into a burial crypt where the simple stone sarcophagus of the Saint, lit by hanging lamps, is exposed to view within a column of rock. After praying at the small altar placed before the tomb, the devotee can move freely around its encircling ambulatory, pausing perhaps at the shrines of four of Francis’s early companions, planets orbiting the Saint’s star. When the crypt was opened in the 1820s, it offered the faithful the kind of access to Francis’s remains that, as Donal Cooper argues elsewhere in this volume, had never been possible in the medieval period.1 An earlier project to improve lay access to the body of Saint Francis had been set in motion towards the very end of the thirteenth century, when the Lower Church had been substantially restructured. The initial burial arrangements beneath the high altar in the Duecento had set up a conflict between the liturgical needs

This article had its beginnings in a series of conference papers presented at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2000; and the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (MI) 2001, and I am most grateful to all those delegates whose questions and suggestions contributed to its further development. I would like to thank Dr. Joanna Cannon, whose illuminating work on Margherita of Cortona inspired some of my initial ideas, for her valuable comments on the draft of this article; and Dr. Donal Cooper, for many discussions of things Franciscan. This article is dedicated to Peter Sidhom, pilgrim of St. Francis, who has spent innumerable enjoyable hours walking, talking and testing theories with me in the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi. 1 See Donal Cooper, “ ‘In loco tutissimo et firmissimo’: the tomb of St. Francis in history, legend and art,” pp. 1–37.

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of the friars in the choir, which was separated from the nave by a solid tramezzo screen, and the demands of the devotees of the Saint’s cult.2 The new arrangements opened up access into the transepts by demolishing the tramezzo screen, while the space available in the Lower Church was substantially expanded through the addition of side chapels (Fig. 1). Francis’s body remained in situ beneath the high altar, which was now protected and reserved to the friars through the installation at the top of the altar steps of ironwork cancelli, separated by marble columns and topped with a cosmati-work architrave. The closest that most Trecento pilgrims could have got to the body of the Saint would have been to kneel on the steps at the front of the high altar: a small iron grate set into the top step, facing the nave, allowed them a limited view down into the subterranean chamber below. This space was known as the buca delle lampade, because it was lit by oil lamps.3 Although the degree of lay access to the shrine is greater now than in the Trecento, another change in the pilgrim’s experience of the tomb is perhaps even more striking. While the austere crypt is entirely devoid of images, every inch of the barrel vaults and walls of the transepts, crossing vaults and apse is covered in brightlycoloured frescoes.4 Nowadays, the religious pilgrims who come to visit Saint Francis’s tomb are matched by equal numbers of pilgrims of art, coming to see the paintings. In the Lower Church in the fourteenth century, there was no such dichotomy: image and cult were combined into a single devotional experience. * 2

*

*

Ibid. This grate still exists in the present-day altar step. A similar grate is shown in two rather fanciful engravings in P. Ridolfi, OFMConv., Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis libri tres (Venice, 1586) (see Isidoro Gatti, OFMConv., La Tomba di S. Francesco nei Secoli (Assisi, 1983), fig. 17) and on an engraving of 1771, but it is likely to be much older. A useful comparison is the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Assisi, where St. Clare, like St. Francis, was also interred beneath a high altar protected by ironwork cancelli. These cancelli (at least part of which are original) are still in place, as is the small grate in the top step in front of the altar. See Marino Bigaroni, “Origine e sviluppo storico della chiesa,” in Marino Bigaroni, Hans-Rudolf Meier and Elvio Lunghi, La Basilica di S. Chiara in Assisi (Ponte San Giovanni, PG, 1994), pp. 24–30, and the photograph on p. 25 (Santa Chiara). See Cooper (Fig. 9) for the 1771 engraving of San Francesco, and for a fuller argument in support of dating the arrangement of cancelli and buca delle lampade to the early fourteenth century. 4 The crypt was initially decorated in a neo-Classic style, but was remodelled between 1925 and 1932 by Ugo Tarchi. 3

the pilgrim’s progress

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The need to improve access to the tomb has been identified as a key motive behind the Franciscans’ decision to restructure the Lower Church.5 Despite this, very little attention has been paid to the manner in which pilgrims experienced the shrine, and virtually none to the way in which the frescoes may have contributed to that experience. The most obvious reason for this lacuna is art historical. Vasari’s methodology, which made art history the history of the artist, continues to cast its long shadow. The consequences for the historiography of the Lower Church transepts at Assisi cannot, it seems to me, be overstated. Since the frescoes of the north6 transept and the crossing vaults are attributed to the workshop of Giotto di Bondone (or his followers) (Fig. 2), and those of the south transept to Pietro Lorenzetti (Fig. 3), the two arms of the transepts are most frequently treated entirely separately, by different scholars (or sometimes even by the same scholars), especially in the Italian literature.7 This monographic tendency has been exacerbated by the fact that Giotto and Pietro Lorenzetti are identified with different regional ‘schools’, so that one finds the transept decoration divided between studies on Florentine and on Sienese painting. Of course, in recent decades, art historical interests in the frescoes of the Lower Church have broadened considerably from the previous near-exclusive focus on attribution, style and dating, with far more attention being paid to

5

For example, Elvio Lunghi, The Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi: The Frescoes by Giotto, his Precursors, and Followers (London, 1996), p. 100; Irene Hueck, “Die Kapellen der Basilika San Francesco in Assisi: die Auftraggeber und die Franziskaner,” in Patronage and Public in the Trecento, Proceedings of the St. Lambrecht Symposium, Abtei St. Lambrecht, Styria, 18–19 July 1984, ed. Vincent Moleta (Florence, 1986), pp. 81–104 (on p. 93). 6 As the Basilica is occidented, I am using geographic rather than liturgical points of the compass. 7 Apart from the treatment of the frescoes in the many monographs devoted to Giotto and Pietro Lorenzetti, some examples dealing specifically with the Assisi frescoes are: for the north transept, Luciano Bellosi, Giotto at Assisi (Assisi, 1989); Giotto e i giotteschi in Assisi, introduction Giovanni Palumbo (Rome, 1969); and for the south transept, Luciano Bellosi, Pietro Lorenzetti at Assisi (Assisi, 1988); C. Brandi, Pietro Lorenzetti: Gli affreschi nella Basilica Inferiore di Assisi (Milan, 1957); Hayden B.J. Maginnis, “Pietro Lorenzetti and the Assisi Passion Cycle,” Ph.D dissertation, Princeton University, 1975 and “The Passion Cycle in the Lower Church of San Francesco, Assisi: the technical evidence,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 39 (1976), 193–208; Carlo Volpe, Pietro Lorenzetti ad Assisi (Milan, 1965). Even books on the complete Basilica tend to compartmentalise the material by artist: see, for example, L. Colletti, Gli affreschi della Basilica di Assisi (Bergamo, 1949); Lunghi, The Basilica.

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iconography, patronage, and viewership.8 But while modern iconographic treatments have immensely increased our understanding of the relationships between Franciscan art and the spirituality, theology and politics of the Order, they naturally tend to focus on particular iconographies, rather than on the sanctuary decoration as a whole. So studies that look at the Lower Church transepts as a unified space are still rare.9 In the search for a more holistic approach to the frescoes, the north transept seems more problematic than the south. It contains two separate narrative cycles, the Infancy of Christ and a short series of Miracles of St. Francis, as well as two unconnected frescoes (the Crucifixion and an earlier Madonna and Child Enthroned). As a result, the programme appears somewhat piecemeal, and certainly less unified than that of the south transept, whose narrative scenes are devoted entirely (but for the insertion of the Stigmatisation of St. Francis) to a Passion Cycle.

8

For the south transept: Maginnis, “Pietro Lorenzetti and the Assisi Passion Cycle”; Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge, 1996); Janet Robson, “Judas and the Franciscans: perfidy pictured in the Lorenzetti Passion Cycle at Assisi,” Art Bulletin 86, no. 1 (2004), 31–57. On the vele and apse: D.W. Schönau, “The ‘vele’ of Assisi: their position and influence,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 44–45, n.s. 9–10 (1983), 99–109; Elvio Lunghi, “La perduta decorazione trecentesca nell’abside della chiesa inferiore del S. Francesco ad Assisi,” Collectanea Franciscana 66 (1996), 479–510 and “L’influenza di Ubertino da Casale e di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi nel programma iconografico della chiesa inferiore del S. Francesco ad Assisi,” ibid., 67 (1997), 167–87. The relationship between the Franciscans and private patrons in determining iconography has, not surprisingly, focused on the side chapels. See Hueck, “Die Kapellen” and, for the St. Nicholas Chapel, “Il Cardinale Napoleone Orsini e la cappella di S. Nicola nella Basilica Francescana ad Assisi,” in Roma Anno 1300: Atti della IV settimana di studi di storia dell’arte medievale dell’Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ (19–24 maggio 1980) (Rome, 1983), pp. 187–98; for the Magdalen Chapel, see Lorraine Schwartz, “The fresco decoration of the Magdalen Chapel in the Basilica at Assisi,” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1980, and “Patronage and Franciscan iconography in the Magdalen Chapel at Assisi,” Burlington Magazine 133 (1991), 32–36; for the St. Martin Chapel, see Joel Brink, “Saints Martin and Francis: sources and meaning in Simone Martini’s Montefiore Chapel,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hugh Craig Smyth 2, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al (Florence, 1985), pp. 79–96; Adrian S. Hoch, “St. Martin of Tours: his transformation into a chivalric hero and Franciscan ideal,” Zeitschrift für Künstgeschichte 50 (1987), 471–82. 9 Two notable examples are Gerhard Ruf, OFMConv., Das Grab des heiligen Franziskus. Die Fresken der Unterkirche von Assisi (Basel, 1981) and Guy Lobrichon, Assise: les fresques de la basilique inférieure (Paris, 1985).


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Yet despite these apparent differences, and the change of artist, there are good reasons for believing that the entire sanctuary was planned from the beginning as a single, coherent decorative programme, carried out during the first two decades of the Trecento. The east and west walls of both transept arms are divided into the same number of pictorial fields, of the same shape and size (with the single exception of the Lorenzetti Crucifixion, which takes up the equivalent of four scenes). The narratives on these walls are arranged in three tiers, with two scenes to a tier, while the end wall of each transept is divided into two tiers, with two images on each. All the narrative scenes are divided by broad ornamental friezes, containing painted busts of figures placed in geometric lozenges. Similar friezes are also used on the ribs of the crossing vaults. Further, the decorative programme originally included the tribune of the apse, and seems to have been planned to encompass the nave as well. The apse was painted at the same time as the crossing vault, by the Giotto shop, but was left incomplete.10 In 1623 it was overpainted with a Last Judgment by Cesare Sermei. The loss of this central image leaves a hole in the programme, but we can at least form some idea of its appearance from the description made by the Franciscan Fra Ludovico da Pietralunga, ca. 1570.11 Much more difficult to assess is the hypothetical decoration of the nave, since this was never realized. The extant frescoes, attributed to the St. Francis Master, are dated to the 1260s.12 They juxtapose scenes from the Passion of Christ on the north wall with scenes from the life of St. Francis on the south. The decision was evidently taken to sacrifice these frescoes to the building of the new side chapels, which open off the nave, and they have remained half-demolished ever since. Given the effort expended on the new decorations in the sanctuary, it seems inherently unlikely that the Franciscans intended to leave the nave in this state. Several scholars have noted that the subjects of the narrative cycles in the transepts are linked to the

10 Lunghi, The Basilica, pp. 116–17, suggests the work may have come to a forced halt in summer 1311, because of a flood in the Lower Church. 11 Fra’ Ludovico da Pietralunga: descrizione della Basilica di S. Francesco e di altri santuari di Assisi, ed. Pietro Scarpellini (Treviso, 1982), pp. 62–64 (hereafter cited as Fra’ Ludovico). 12 Joanna Cannon, “Dating the frescoes by the Maestro di San Francesco at Assisi,” Burlington Magazine 134 (1982), 65–69.

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themes established in the allegories of Chastity, Obedience and Poverty in the adjacent crossing vaults.13 Hence, the Infancy of Christ is associated with Chastity, in the north web of the vault, and the Passion with Obedience, in the south. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the decoration of the nave would have been linked to Poverty, the allegory in the east web. Technical evidence has shown that the transepts were painted from north to south, and that the Lorenzetti Passion Cycle was therefore the last part to have been painted.14 Hayden Maginnis has argued for a terminus ante quem of 1320, both on style grounds and because, after the Ghibelline uprising of 29 September 1319, Assisi in the 1320s and 1330s was beset by political and financial problems.15 But, in addition, any plan to celebrate either Franciscan or Christological poverty in the nave frescoes would have been fatally undermined by the declaration of Pope John XXII, in 1323, that the doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the apostles was heretical.16 *

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If we accept that the Trecento decoration of the sanctuary of the Lower Church was devised as a coherent programme, what evidence is there that this programme was intended for an audience of pilgrims? Since the area around the tomb was deliberately opened up and then immediately redecorated, common sense suggests that it would have been highly unlikely that the devisors of the programme would not have considered pilgrims as important viewers of the new frescoes. But the situation is complicated by the fact that the sanctuary continued to serve a dual function and to be used by the friars for liturgical purposes.

13 For instance, A.T. Mignosi, “Osservazioni sul transetto della basilica inferiore di Assisi,” Bollettino d’arte 60 (1975), 129–42; Lobrichon, Assise, p. 101; Lunghi, The Basilica, pp. 106–111. 14 Hayden B.J. Maginnis, “The Passion Cycle in the Lower Church of San Francesco” (see above, n. 7) and “Assisi revisited: notes on recent observations,” Burlington Magazine 117 (1975), 511–15; Robin Simon, “Towards a relative chronology of the frescoes in the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi,” Burlington Magazine 118 (1976), 361–65. 15 Hayden B.J. Maginnis, “Pietro Lorenzetti: a chronology,” Art Bulletin 66 (1984), 183–211 (on p. 208). 16 Lunghi, The Basilica, p. 111. The abandonment of the plan seems to have been tacitly acknowledged by the attempt to patch up the surviving section of St. Francis Preaching to the Birds, in a style similar to that of the Upper Church St. Francis Cycle.


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In many ways, the programme could comfortably serve two audiences. The Infancy and Passion Cycles that take up most of the wall space in the transept arms could certainly have been viewed and understood by both lay and religious, Franciscan or not, albeit on rather different levels. For instance, I have argued elsewhere that the unusual attention given to Judas in the first five scenes of the Lorenzetti Passion Cycle was devised for the audience of friars, and had specific meaning for them.17 Judas’s fall was linked to his avarice: as Bonaventure put it, “none of Christ’s disciples were lost except the one who carried [the purse].”18 This was of especial interest to an Order whose particular practice of poverty was founded on the doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles.19 Not only that, but the logical corollary of the creation of Francis as alter Christus was the realisation that one of the Saint’s companions must have betrayed him. The alter Iudas role was filled by one Brother John of Cappella, who had apostatized from the Order and subsequently hanged himself. Arnald of Sarrant, after telling John of Cappella’s sorry tale, warned his brothers: “Whoever sees this happen to such a chosen companion should watch out if he is standing, lest he fall more severely.”20 Hence the Suicide of Judas in the Lorenzetti Passion Cycle would have been a perpetual reminder to the friars of the dangers of falling from grace. But such an interpretation would not have precluded a more general reading of the Judas scenes by different types of viewers. Likewise, although the positioning of the two Crucifixions on the east wall of each transept arm (only one of which is placed in its narrative sequence) was probably dictated by the presence of the friars, the popularity of Passion devotion in the period would have made the images much more broadly applicable.21 Some parts

17

For the following, see Robson, “Judas and the Franciscans” (see above, n. 8). Bonaventure, Defense of the Mendicants, The Works of Bonaventure 4, trans. José de Vinck (Paterson, NJ, 1965), chap. 7, p. 159. 19 The official Franciscan position on this was most fully expounded by Bonaventure in his Apologia pauperum of ca. 1260. (Trans. as Defense of the Mendicants, ibid.) 20 Arnald of Sarrant, The Kinship of St. Francis, trans. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 3, eds. Regis J. Armstrong OFMCap., J.A. Wayne Hellmann OFMConv., William J. Short OFM (New York, 2001), p. 693. 21 These Crucifixions are placed directly beneath two earlier Crucifixions, attributed to Cimabue, in the equivalent positions in the transepts of the Upper Church. Because of later alterations to the Lower Church and crypt, an exact reconstruction of the fourteenth-century choir is problematic. Lunghi, “L’influenza di Ubertino,” pp. 186–87, seems to assume a gathering of friars under the vele, within the high 18

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of the programme, however, do seem to have been devised more exclusively for the friars. This is especially true of the vele: the iconography of the three Franciscan vows, the complex allegorical imagery, and the placement of the images directly above the high altar, an area reserved for the friars, all point to this. On the other hand, I would argue that some images in the transepts, while resonant for the friars as well, were aimed more particularly at pilgrims. Principal among these is the short cycle of posthumous miracles of St. Francis in the north transept. I will discuss this cycle in detail below, but for now I would simply highlight the considerable body of evidence pointing to the fundamental importance of the depiction of posthumous miracles in the promotion of the cults of saints and beati in this period.22 Another image I believe may have been primarily devised for visitors to the church was the Glorification of St. Francis (Fig. 4) in the west web of the crossing vault. Although still an allegory, this image is somewhat different in nature from the Franciscan vows in the other vele, and its fundamental message would

altar enclosure itself. I am hypothesizing that for divine offices the friars would have been seated in the apse, facing (geographic) east. For further discussion, see Cooper, note 106. 22 In the preliminary notes to Images of St. Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to ca. 1320 in Italy: a Catalogue (Florence, 1999), William R. Cook argues that the early dossals of St. Francis “with their emphasis on the posthumous miracles that took place at Francis’ tomb, encouraged pilgrimage to Assisi” (p. 22). All seven surviving dossals of St. Francis painted before 1263 (according to Cook’s dating) feature posthumous miracles: only two contain more life than posthumous miracles, while three contain solely posthumous miracles: see cat. nos. 27, 68, 115, 141, 143, 145 and 163. F. Bisogni has argued that the division of content in the frescoes in the Cappellone di S. Nicola da Tolentino, which have been connected with the Saint’s canonisation process of 1325, reflects an expected dual audience, with the scenes of Nicholas’s life being directly primarily at the Augustinian friars and the miracle scenes at pilgrims. See F. Bisogni, “Gli inizi dell’iconografia di Nicola da Tolentino e gli affreschi del Cappellone,” in San Nicola, Tolentino, le Marche: Contributi e ricerche sul processo (a. 1325) per la canonizzione di San Nicola da Tolentino. Convegno internazionale di studi, Tolentino 4–7 sett. 1985 (Tolentino, 1987), pp. 266–321. Joanna Cannon argues that the emphasis on Beata Margherita as a thaumaturge in the lost fresco cycle in S. Margherita, Cortona, ca. 1335, was connected with renewed civic interest in seeking her official canonisation: see Joanna Cannon and André Vauchez, Margherita of Cortona and the Lorenzetti: Sienese Art and the Cult of a Holy Woman in Medieval Tuscany (University Park, PA, 1999), pp. 181–90, 205–12 and 217–20. See also Max Seidel, “Condizionamento iconografico e scelta semantica: Simone Martini e la tavola del Beato Agostino Novello,” in Simone Martini: Atti del convegno, Siena, 1985, ed. Luciano Bellosi (Florence, 1988), pp. 75–80, for the role of the posthumous miracle scenes of the Beato Agostino altarpiece in the promotion of the Beato’s cult in Siena in the early 1330s.


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not have been difficult to understand. Most importantly, it is positioned above the tomb and would have been facing the pilgrims as they knelt on the altar steps. At this point, it would be pertinent to assess these images through the eyes of the pilgrims themselves. Unfortunately, pilgrim accounts of visits to Assisi in the period up to the definitive closure of the tomb chamber in 1476 offer meagre pickings.23 The Spanish traveller Pero Tafur visited Assisi in the 1430s and commented on the tomb, but otherwise added only the briefest of remarks: “The monastery is very notable and very richly adorned.”24 The inveterate English pilgrim, Margery Kempe, visited Assisi on her way to Rome in the summer of 1414. In the church she was shown a relic of the Virgin’s veil, whereupon “sche wept, sche sobbyd, sche cryed wyth gret plente of teerys and many holy thowtys.”25 While the paltriness of the evidence is disappointing, it should not necessarily be seen as proof that the shrine and its images had no impact on pilgrims. More likely it reflects the fact that most pilgrims simply had no reason to record their experiences. Ben Nilson, encountering a similar lack of evidence for medieval English shrines, comments: “The medieval view seems to have been that everyone knew what happened at a shrine, and therefore it needed no description.”26 What we can glean from the accounts of Pero Tafur and Margery Kempe is that both had close contact with the friars. Margery met and talked with an English Franciscan friar in Assisi.27 Tafur lodged for three days in “the principal monastery” of the Order (presumably the Sacro Convento), where he found “a servant of our Cardinal of Castile who was a great friend of mine”.28 Tafur was presumably 23 I have not undertaken extensive research on this particular point and there may be accounts that are presently unknown to me. 24 Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures 1435–39, trans. and ed. Malcolm Letts (London, 1926), p. 44. 25 The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Barry Windeatt (Harlow, 2000), pp. 180–81. The relic of the Virgin’s veil had been presented to the friars of the Sacro Convento by Tommaso Orsini that same year: Silvestro Nessi, La Basilica di S.Francesco in Assisi e la sua documentazione storico 2, 2nd rev. ed. (Assisi, 1994), p. 395. Margery’s tearful reaction to the veil was a common one for her, but the often hostile reactions of other pilgrims towards her, recorded in her Book, suggest that it was not regarded as typical pilgrim behaviour. 26 Ben Nilson, “The Medieval Experience at the Shrine,” in Pilgrimage Explored, ed. J. Stopford (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999), pp. 95–122 (on p. 97). 27 The Book of Margery Kempe, p. 180. 28 Tafur, Travels and Adventures, p. 44.

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referring to the friars when he reported: “they say that the body [of St. Francis] . . . is buried there in a place which they show . . .”29 It is notable that both Tafur and Margery were able to find friars of their own nationality to guide them. An account of a local pilgrimage to Assisi is given in the Memorial of the mystic Angela of Foligno. Although the events related took place in 1291, before the restructuring of the Lower Church, the Memorial gives some insight into the general nature of such a pilgrimage. Angela made her pilgrimage as part of a group of “very good men and women, her companions”30 and in the church she met a friar from her home town who was her relative, confessor and spiritual advisor, and who later became her scribe.31 This is the only pilgrimage account of the period to refer to a specific image: on entering the Upper Church, Angela saw “Saint Francis depicted in the arms of Christ” (in the stained-glass window now in the first bay of the south wall of the nave), triggering a violent spiritual crisis that caused her to screech long and loud, much to the embarrassment of her confessor.32 While the collective accounts of Tafur, Margery and Angela suggest that the friars were actively involved in guiding visitors around the Basilica, they do not provide evidence for a coherent decorative programme aimed at pilgrims visiting the tomb. However, the case for such a programme is supported by evidence of a different kind: the images themselves. In the rest of this article, I will argue that there is a consistent message running through the images of the entire area around the tomb. The artists employ two visual tools to express some overarching themes that are able to transcend the individual meanings communicated through the iconography of the separate narrative cycles. First, specific gestures are used repeatedly to help pilgrims interpret the images (perhaps with the assistance of a guide) without needing detailed knowledge of learned religious texts. Although I will draw on some Franciscan writings, this is primarily in order to provide support for my arguments for the benefit of the modern reader; in addition, as far as possible, I have deliberately used only the most popular texts of St. Bonaventure. 29

Ibid. Angela of Foligno, Memorial, trans. John Cirignano, introduction, notes and interpretive essay by Cristina Mazzoni (Cambridge, 1999), p. 37. 31 His identity is unknown, but he is usually referred to as Brother A. 32 Angela of Foligno, Memorial, p. 43, for Angela’s account of the incident and p. 37 for Brother A’s side of the story. 30


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The second tool is the positioning of the images in relation to each other and within the sacred space. I will argue that the sequence in which images were viewed by the pilgrims as they moved around the church would have significantly affected the overall message received. The route which pilgrims took around the church would therefore have formed an important component of the programme. Before discussing the pilgrim’s progress in detail, I should like to add some provisos. I do not intend to suggest that my proposed route would have been used exclusively, or at all times. I am thinking primarily in terms of times of day when Mass or the offices were not taking place (so no friars in the choir), and of periods of the year when the church would have been at its most crowded. Peak periods would have been mainly the feasts on which pilgrims visiting the church could gain indulgences.33 In constructing my route I have had to make two suppositions. The first is that pilgrims would have venerated the tomb from the steps at the front of the high altar (rather than the back). The position of the buca delle lampade is evidence in favour of this argument.34 The second is that it would have been possible for pilgrims to circulate around the transept area by passing behind the altar.35 Although both these assertions are to some extent hostages to fortune, I would argue that the visual evidence I shall cite is at least suggestive of their probability. *

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33 An indulgence of one year and forty days was offered to those visiting the Basilica on the feasts (and octaves) of St. Francis (4 October), the Translation of St. Francis (25 May) and St. Anthony of Padua (13 June); Pentecost, the Nativity, the Annunciation, the Purification of the Virgin and the Assumption. See Bullarium Franciscanum Romanorum Pontificum constitutiones, epistolas, ac diplomata continens tribus Ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum et Poenitentium a Seraphico Patriarca Sancto Francisco institutis concessa 4 (Rome, 1768), ed. J.H. Sbaralea, p. 380 (Boniface VIII, Ante thronum, 21 January 1296) and pp. 254–55 (Nicholas IV, Eximae devotionis, 1 June 1291). A lesser indulgence of 100 days was available for those visiting the Basilica on all other days of the year (“diebus singulis”), ibid., p. 380 (Boniface VIII, Licet is, 21 January 1296). Most attractive of all was the plenary indulgence known as the Perdono (2 August): although it applied not to the Basilica but to the Porziuncola at Santa Maria degli Angeli, many pilgrims would also have taken the opportunity to visit the tomb of St. Francis while they were in Assisi. Margery Kempe did so. For the historicity of the Perdono, see P. Rino Bartolini OFM, “La ‘novitas’ dell’indulgenza della Porziuncola alla luce del IV Concilio Lateranse e della storia dei pellegrinaggi,” Convivium Assisiense, n.s., anno 4, no. 1 (2002), 195–264. 34 See note 3. 35 The main uncertainty here is the position and extent of the friars’ choir. See note 21.

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The construction of the side chapels along the north side, with their interconnecting doorways, created an additional route between the atrium and the north transept (Fig. 1). This immediately suggests two alternative circular routes. The first possibility is that the pilgrims processed up the nave to the high altar, where they would kneel above the tomb, then continue on their way, passing behind the altar (in a clockwise direction) before returning to the entrance via the side chapels. The obvious benefit of this route is its directness: the pilgrim immediately achieves his or her object. But there are distinct disadvantages in terms of crowd control. A long line of the faithful could quickly build up behind those kneeling at the high altar, with nothing to keep them occupied. The second possible route simply reverses the first. The pilgrims approach through the side chapels, whose altars might provide convenient stopping points on the way to the tomb. Moving around the transepts in a counter-clockwise direction, the pilgrims would be able to venerate the relics of two groups of Francis’s early companions. The first wall-shrine, in the north transept, is still in its Trecento position beneath the Madonna and Child Enthroned attributed to Cimabue. Fronted by an iron grating, the shrine contains the remains of five friars who are depicted in the fresco above.36 There was originally a similar arrangement for the second shrine, beneath the Crucifixion in the south transept.37 It might be argued that the pilgrim could venerate these shrines equally well by taking the first route. But there is one crucial difference: this way, the pilgrim venerates the relics of the companions before reaching the tomb of the Saint. As well as the crowd control advantages, there are also psychological benefits. The pilgrim’s devotional experience is extended along with the anticipation of achieving his or her main object. The Saint’s tomb becomes the culminating experience of the tour.38 36 In his description, Fra Ludovico da Pietralunga noted the presence of a little panel alongside the shrine giving some details about the beati. This panel (now lost) identified them as Bernard of Quintavalle, Sylvester of Assisi, William of England, Eletto of Assisi (a layman) and Valentine of Narni. Scarpellini, however, points out that the last friar could not have been Valentine of Narni since he did not die until 1378. See Fra’ Ludovico (see above, n. 11), pp. 71–72. 37 According to Fra’ Ludovico, p. 76, whose description was made before the frescoes were damaged by the construction of a Baroque altarpiece, this shrine contained the remains of Brothers Leo, Angelo, Masseo and Rufino. These are the four companions who are now interred in the crypt along with St. Francis. 38 That the Franciscans of the Sacro Convento considered the proper role of the


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The arrangement of the narrative cycles within the transepts reinforces the likelihood that the circulatory route was planned in this way, since the Infancy Cycle is in the north transept and the Passion Cycle in the south. Lobrichon notes that the entire Christological scheme begins with the two halves of the Annunciation on the upper register of the end wall of the north transept and concludes with the Harrowing of Hell and the Resurrection, which face them on the wall opposite. The disposition of the narratives within the sacred space directs the spectator’s movement: “one passes therefore from north to south, from the Promise to the Accomplishment.”39 All these considerations convince me that pilgrims were always intended to move around the transepts in a counter-clockwise direction: therefore they must have entered the north transept through the small doorway from the Magdalen Chapel. Irene Hueck has argued that the friars had the chapels on the north side erected in quick succession in the early years of the fourteenth century, and that the need to ease circulation problems was the prime motive for their creation, with the demand from private patrons for burial space being only a secondary consideration.40 Further, she suggests that it may have been the Franciscans rather than the patrons who selected many of the dedications for the new altars. The St. Anthony of Padua Chapel did not acquire a patron until the middle of the fourteenth century, when the arms of the Lelli family were placed on the wall, and its altar may have replaced one that had previously stood in front of the Cimabue Madonna and Child Enthroned in the north transept.41 The evidence for the Magdalen Chapel is particularly interesting. The patron of the chapel has been identified as Teobaldo Pontano, the Franciscan Bishop of Assisi from 1296 to his death in 1329.42 A relics of the companions to be suitably subordinate to those of St. Francis is demonstrated in a story in the Chronica XXIV Generalium ordinis minorum, Analecta Francescana 3 (Quaracchi, 1897), p. 217. During his minister-generalate (1233–39), Elias of Cortona proceeds to the tomb of Brother William of England and admonishes him not to obscure the glory of the Saint with his miracles. 39 Lobrichon, Assise, p. 101. 40 Hueck, “Die Kapellen”. 41 Ibid., p. 96. 42 The two donor portraits in the chapel and an identification of Cardinal Pietro di Barro, who died in 1252, as the patron have confused the situation. Simon, “Towards a relative chronology” (see above, n. 14), has argued that the Magdalen Chapel was built between 1256 and 1274, but Hueck’s dating of shortly after 1300 is more generally accepted.

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papal letter of 1332 names him as the patron and says that he paid 600 gold florins for the chapel. But Hueck has shown that Pontano initially put down only 100 florins, the rest of the sum being advanced by the Franciscans themselves.43 By the time of his death, the Bishop had still not paid back all of the loan. Hueck argues that the chapel must already have been built before Pontano became its patron, and its stained-glass window commissioned.44 While the windows of the other private chapels contain either a portrait or the coat-of-arms of the patron, this one does not.45 Since the window contains scenes from the life of the Magdalen, this suggests that the Franciscans had already chosen the dedication for the chapel’s altar. Hueck believes that it may have replaced an earlier Magdalen altar that had been situated on the lay side of the tramezzo screen. Some of the marble cosmati-work panels from the tramezzo were also incorporated into the Magdalen Chapel, perhaps for the same reason. The unusual inclusion of two portraits of the patron in the chapel is suggestive of strong personal input by Bishop Pontano, yet the distinctions that are being made in these two images are telling. Whereas Pontano kneels at the feet of San Rufino (titular of his cathedral) in full episcopal pomp as Bishop of Assisi, it is as a Franciscan friar that he grasps the hand of the Magdalen. The personal interests of Pontano seem in perfect rapport here with the corporate interests of the Franciscans of the Sacro Convento. The importance of the Magdalen in mendicant spirituality is well known. Katherine Jansen has argued convincingly that the twin factors of mendicant preaching and the reformulation of sacramental penance at the Fourth Lateran Council inspired a new wave of devotion to the Magdalen in late medieval Italy, and that she was offered to the laity as a model of perfect penance.46 It is in her role as a penitent that she earns her place at the foot of the Cross in late medieval depictions of the Crucifixion—so it is significant that the first time she

43 Irene Hueck, “Ein Dokument zur Magdalenenkapelle der Franziskuskirche von Assisi,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Roberto Salvini (Florence, 1984), pp. 191–96. 44 Frank Martin, Die Glasmalereien von San Francesco in Assisi (Regensburg, 1997), pp. 297–303, dates the window ca. 1300–05, making it the earliest window in the chapels of the north side. 45 Hueck, “Die Kapellen”, p. 94. 46 Katherine Ludwig Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 1999).


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is permitted to displace St. Francis from this position among the numerous Crucifixions in the Basilica at Assisi is in the north transept of the Lower Church (Fig. 5).47 The Magdalen Chapel stands out from the other chapels on the north side because it is the only one to have been decorated in the early Trecento.48 The St. Louis of Toulouse Chapel was frescoed by Dono Doni in 1573 and the St. Anthony of Padua Chapel by Cesare Sermei and Girolamo Martelli in 1609.49 The failure to decorate all the new chapels—and to repaint the nave—was probably due to the straitened financial circumstances of the Basilica from the 1320s and a dearth of private patronage. Be that as it may, the eagerness of the friars to complete the decoration of the Magdalen Chapel, forwarding much of the money on the patron’s behalf, might suggest that they considered this chapel an essential component of the overall iconographic programme of the sanctuary. In addition to Hueck’s evidence about the choice of dedication, it may be significant that the frescoes were undertaken at the same time, and by the same group of artists, as the decoration of the north transept.50 Rather than proceeding through all the chapels, might the main pilgrim route have been up the nave, then turning right into the Magdalen Chapel (see Fig. 1)? In the absence of the nave decorations that would have completed the overall decorative programme, this idea must remain speculative, but it should at least be considered as a possibility, if only as an amendment to the original plan.

47 In both Crucifixion frescoes in the Upper Church transepts, attributed to Cimabue, St. Francis is at the foot of the Cross. See Ketti Neil, “St. Francis of Assisi, the Penitent Magdalen and the patron at the foot of the Cross,” Rutgers Art Review 9–10 (1988–89), 83–110; Bridget Heal, “Paradigm of penance: the presence of Mary Magdalen at the foot of the Cross in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Crucifixion imagery from Tuscany and Umbria,” MA dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1996. 48 There are some fragmentary frescoes attributed to Andrea de’ Bartoli ca. 1360 in the small San Lorenzo Chapel, between the chapels of the Magdalen and St. Anthony of Padua. 49 It is possible that these decorations might have replaced earlier schemes. However, Fra’ Ludovico does not mention frescoes in either chapel in his description of ca. 1570 (pp. 41–42 and 45). See also Nessi, La Basilica 2 (see above, n. 25), pp. 448–54. 50 See Schwartz, “The fresco decoration of the Magdalen Chapel” (see above, n. 8), pp. 121–53, and, for a more recent review of the historiography, Scarpellini’s comments in Fra’ Ludovico, pp. 244–50.

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The preaching of penitence had been central to the Franciscan mission from the very beginning and it is the overriding message of the iconography of the Magdalen Chapel.51 If the pilgrims did indeed enter the chapel from the nave, the theme would have been introduced by the series of full-length figures of saints who are paired under the entrance arch (Fig. 6). Some of these are extremely unusual choices: for instance, the Good Thief and the Roman centurion Longinus (paired here) are very rarely depicted outside their narrative context in the Crucifixion. The theme linking all the saints in the soffit is penitence and this, in turn, links them with the Magdalen. This idea was put forward by Schwartz52 and further developed by Jansen,53 but neither noted that all five of the male New Testament figures in the soffit are cited as exemplars of penance by Bonaventure: Know you not that many of the saints have sinned, and have also learned from their grievous misdeeds to have pity on us sinners? . . . Remember always that they obtained pardon through their prayers. . . . Behold Matthew sitting at the counting table, a sinner and a tax collector, and yet chosen as a disciple; Paul stoning Stephen, and yet called to be an apostle; Peter denying Christ, and yet immediately pardoned; the soldier crucifying Christ, and yet daring to rely on divine mercy; the robber hanging on the cross, and yet obtaining pardon. Finally, O soul, consider that most notorious and wicked sinner Mary Magdalen becoming so specially devoted to Christ.54

Penitence was a central theme of the Franciscan message to the laity in general, but it was also of particular relevance to pilgrims, having long been a traditional aspect of medieval pilgrimage. The standard wording of the papal indulgences granted to those visiting the Basilica specified that the devotee must be “vere poenitentibus et confessis”.55 It may have been because of the perceived link of pen51 When Pope Innocent III approved the Franciscan Order in 1209 or 1210 he gave the friars, most of whom were laymen, permission to preach, provided that they preached only penance (1 Celano, chap. 13, par. 33). 52 Schwartz, “Patronage and Franciscan iconography” (see above, n. 8), pp. 32–36. 53 Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen, p. 204. 54 Soliloquy on the Four Spiritual Exercises, in The Works of Bonaventure 3, pp. 33–130 (on pp. 61–62). Of the three other male figures depicted in the soffit, King David is cited by Bonaventure in this same text, among the Old Testament penitents. The identification of the final two figures has proved difficult: Schwartz believes they are Dionysius the Areopagite and St. Augustine. As a converted Manichean and the author of the Confessions, St. Augustine might be viewed as a penitent, but it is hard to see how Dionysius could be. 55 For references, see note 33.


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itence that at Santiago de Compostela, according to the famous description of the church in the twelfth-century Codex Calixtinus, “between the altar of Saint James and the altar of the Holy Saviour is the altar of St. Mary Magdalene, where the morning masses for the pilgrims are sung.”56 One wonders whether the Magdalen Chapel at Assisi might, at times, have served a similar function?57 The chapel would certainly have been a highly suitable gathering point for pilgrims waiting to enter the transepts. While they were there, a particularly apt scene for them to contemplate would have been the seascape depicted on the right-hand wall (Fig. 7).58 According to the Golden Legend, fourteen years after Christ’s Ascension the Magdalen and her companions sailed to Marseilles, and this is shown in the background of the scene. The foreground, however, contains a separate and subsequent story.59 Having been converted by the Magdalen, the governor of Marseilles and his wife set sail on a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. But during the voyage the wife dies in childbirth, and so her husband (called Pilgrim in the Golden Legend ) puts ashore on a rocky coastline, where he leaves her body, and the baby, lying on his cloak. In Rome, St. Peter promises Pilgrim that it is within God’s power “to restore what was taken away, and to turn your grief into joy.”60 Returning to the same coast on his way home two years later, Pilgrim discovers his child miraculously still alive. When he invokes the aid of the Magdalen his wife awakens and tells him that in her dreams, with the Magdalen as her guide, she has been accompanying her husband throughout his entire pilgrimage. In the fresco, we see Pilgrim arriving in his little skiff and reaching

56 The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela: a Critical Edition, gen. ed. Paula Gerson, 2 vols. (London, 1998), Vol II: The Text. Annotated English Translation by Paula Gerson, Annie Shaver-Crandell and Alison Stones, p. 79. The altar was apparently prominently placed in the ambulatory, directly behind the high altar: p. 210, note 106. 57 Bishop Pontano’s donation for the chapel included provision for vestments, a chalice, two silver candlesticks and a missal. See Hueck, “Ein Dokument” (see above, n. 43), p. 196. 58 See Cannon and Vauchez, Margherita (see above, n. 22), p. 178, for the suggestion that the frescoes on the south nave wall of S. Margherita in Cortona may have provided a rallying point for pilgrims waiting, on busy days, to approach the beata’s tomb on the opposite wall. 59 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, Readings on the Saints 1, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, NJ, 1995), pp. 376–79. 60 Ibid., p. 379.

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out for his child (whose figure is now largely effaced), while his wife still lies motionless on his cloak. The iconography of the Magdalen Chapel frescoes thus introduces a theme of Hope that is continued throughout the sanctuary. The narrative sequence moves from the bottom of the wall to the top and, as a result, the first two scenes of the cycle are placed directly above the door leading into the north transept (Fig. 6). The first scene, Christ in the House of Simon, depicts the Magdalen’s penitence. As Christ dines in Bethany, the Magdalen (a notorious sinner, according to Luke) kneels and anoints his feet with precious ointment and in return receives forgiveness of her sins. In the second scene, the Raising of Lazarus, which was understood to prefigure Christ’s own Resurrection, Lazarus is restored to life by Christ in response to the pleading of his sisters Mary and Martha. In both scenes, the Magdalen places all her hope in Christ and is rewarded. Hope, one of the three theological virtues, had been defined by Peter Lombard as “the certain expectation of future bliss, coming out of the grace of God and out of previous merit.”61 The two scenes pair the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body. Professed successively in the Nicene Creed, these are perhaps the two most important “expectations of future bliss” in which all true Christians must place their hope. After taking in these two scenes, the pilgrims could file down the short passage and through the door into the north transept. From this direction, the patchwork impression of the lowest tier of images resolves itself. The short cycle of St. Francis’s posthumous miracles, instead of seeming a piecemeal addition to the Infancy Cycle, now assumes much greater prominence. The first images to confront the pilgrim are the two frescoes opposite, on the lowest tier. The allegory of Francis and Death (Fig. 8), placed over the stairs, must have been devised especially for this setting, close to the tomb of the Saint.62 Francis faces forward, looking directly at the viewer, and holds up his right hand to display his wounded palm. His left hand

61 “[Spes] est certa exspectatio futurae beatitudinis, veniens ex Dei gratia et meritis praecedentibus,” Magistri Petri Lombardi, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae 2 (Grottaferrata, 1981), lib. III, d. 26, cap. 1 (91), p. 159. 62 The only other version of Francis and Death painted in the medieval period in Italy is, to my knowledge, a slightly later fresco in the chapter house of the Santo in Padua. My thanks to Dr. Laura Jacobus for bringing this image to my attention.


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rests familiarly on the shoulder of a grinning corpse, who stands in front of a wooden coffin and whose flesh is decaying to reveal his skeleton. Louis Jordan believes that the iconography was adapted from The Three Living and the Three Dead, the famous fable in which three rich youths meet three corpses, who warn them “What you are, we were/And what we are, you will be.”63 However, he argues that since the skeleton wears a crown, it does not represent one of the Three Dead, but is rather the earliest known iconographic representation of “King Death”.64 Chiara Frugoni has noted that numerous Italian pictorial versions of The Three Living and the Three Dead add the figure of a bearded hermit, brandishing a scroll.65 She argues that the inclusion of this figure, who appropriates the words of the Three Dead, turns the encounter into a meditation.66 The hermit exhorts not only the Three Living but also the viewers to contemplate the scene, and to prepare for their own deaths by repenting of their sins. The spirituality of the medieval hermit was distinguished by poverty and by preaching penitence;67 it is the latter characteristic that Frugoni argues made the hermit a suitable narrator for the scene. St. Francis, therefore, would also have been an appropriate choice.68 Francis’s

63 This text exists in various versions, mainly French, of which the best known is the poem by Baudouin of Condé (ca. 1240–80), minstrel to Margaret, Countess of Flanders. At least two Duecento representations of the story can be found in Italy: the first in the north apse of the cathedral of Atri, in southern Italy; the second in the grotto church of S. Margherita, Melfi. See Louis Edward Jordan III, “The iconography of death in western medieval art to 1350,” Ph.D. dissertation, Medieval Institute of Notre Dame University, Indiana, 1980, pp. 99–103. 64 Ibid., p. 109. 65 The earliest may be in the church of St. Flavian, Montefiascone, ca. 1320; other fourteenth-century examples are in the Camposanto, Pisa and the Scala Santa, Subiaco. See Chiara Settis Frugoni, “Il tema dell’Incontro dei tre vivi e dei tre morti nella tradizione medioevale italiana,” Atti della accademia nazionale dei lincei: memorie classe di scienze morale, storiche, e filologiche, series 8, vol. 13 (1967), fasc. 3, 145–251, esp. 166–82. 66 Ibid., p. 173. On the predella panel by Bernardo Daddi in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence (no. 6153) the hermit’s cartouche reads: “Costoro furono re come voi, in questo modo sarete voi.” 67 According to Étienne Delaruelle, “Les ermits et la spiritualité populaire,” in L’eremitismo in Occidente nei secoli XI e XII: atti della seconda Settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 30 agosto–6 settembre 1962 (Milan, 1965), p. 219, “cette prédication est donc essentiellement une ‘prédication de pénitence’.” 68 “. . . s’annonce par bien des traits saint François d’Assise qui, à de nombreux égards, sera un héritier des ermites du XIe siècle.” Ibid., p. 241.

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gesture with his raised right hand reinforces his message to the viewer. In the sixteenth century, Fra Ludovico da Pietralunga saw this as a preacher’s gesture,69 while Lobrichon has likened it to a gesture of welcome and acceptance.70 But only Gerhard Ruf (significantly, a Franciscan himself ) has drawn attention to the importance of the fact that, with this gesture, Francis prominently displays his stigmata.71 In one of his sermons on the Saint, Bonaventure had spoken of St. Francis’s stigmata as a sign of penance, placed on him by God so that he might be the model of penitence for all who were to come after him.72 More is intended in this allegory than just a penitential meditation on the certainty of death. In his account of the canonisation of St. Francis in the Legenda maior, Bonaventure explained that God made Francis more brilliant in death, by leaving signs of future glory imprinted on his body. The stigmata were the sign of the living God, the seal of Christ’s approval of Francis and a guarantee of his sanctity that, as Bonaventure proclaimed, “confirm believers in faith, raise them aloft with confident hope and set them ablaze with the fire of charity”.73 In his chapter on Francis’s posthumous miracles, Bonaventure begins with several concerning the stigmata themselves. The Saint appears in the dreams of those who doubt the truth of the stigmata and displays his wounds to them—beginning with no less a figure than Pope Gregory IX.74 Bonaventure then recounts the healing of a mortally wounded man from Ilerda, and asserts that it was from his stigmata that Francis derived his posthumous thaumaturgical power.75 The importance ascribed to these two miracles by the Franciscans at Assisi is demonstrated by their selection as the first two posthumous miracles in the St. Francis fresco cycle of the Upper Church. According to Bonaventure, the power of the stigmata was entirely fitting. They were, after all, the brand marks of Christ who, through his death and resurrection, had healed the human race through the

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Fra’ Ludovico, p. 73. Lobrichon, Assise, p. 107. 71 Ruf, Das Grab (see above, n. 9), p. 140. 72 Bonaventure, Evening Sermon on Saint Francis, preached at Paris, October 4, 1262, trans. in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2, pp. 718–30 (on p. 721). 73 Bonaventure, Legenda maior, chap. 13, par. 9, trans. ibid., p. 637. 74 Bonaventure, Legenda maior, The Miracles, chap. 1, pars. 1–4, ibid., pp. 650–52. 75 Ibid., par. 5, pp. 651–52. 70


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power of his wounds.76 The display of Francis’s hand to the pilgrim entering the north transept was therefore a powerful symbol of hope on two different levels. Firstly, to all those approaching the tomb in the hope of receiving a miraculous cure, it displayed the Saint’s thaumaturgical credentials. On another level, it offered the hope of eternal life for all truly repentant believers. For, as Bonaventure had stressed, Francis had received the singular privilege of the stigmata so that “his most holy flesh . . . would offer by the newness of a miracle, a glimpse of the resurrection”.77 Again this message fitted into the traditional ideology of pilgrimage. In a sermon addressed to pilgrims, Jacques de Vitry (†1240), for example, had exhorted the pilgrim not to fear death but rather to seek it willingly, in the certain belief that all those who die in Christ’s service will be rewarded.78 De Vitry’s contemporary, Saint Francis, expressed similar sentiments in the stanza he had added on his deathbed to his Canticle of the Creatures, his vernacular hymn of praise for creation: Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin. Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm.79

While death was certain, its power could be transcended. Beda Kleinschmidt long ago argued that this is why the crown on the head of Death is shown beginning to topple. Death’s power could be overturned: it is Francis, not Death, who is king.80 The meaning of this allegory is brought into sharper focus through its contrast with another image of death, the Death of Judas (Fig. 9). Part of Lorenzetti’s Passion Cycle, this scene occupies the same position in the south transept as does Francis and Death in the north. As

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Ibid., p. 652. Legenda maior, chap. 15, par. 1, ibid., p. 645. 78 The sermon is unpublished. See Deborah Birch, “Jacques de Vitry and the ideology of pilgrimage,” in Pilgrimage Explored (see above, n. 26), pp. 79–93 (on p. 87). 79 Assisi Compilation (ca. 1244–60), chap. 7, trans. in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2, p. 121. 80 Beda Kleinschmidt, Die Basilika S. Francesco in Assisi 2 (Berlin, 1926), p. 211. See also: Martin Gosebruch, “Gli affreschi di Giotto nel braccio destro del transetto e nelle ‘vele’ centrali della Chiese Inferiore di San Francesco,” in Giotto e i giotteschi in Assisi (see above, n. 7), pp. 129–98 (on p. 140); Ruf, Das Grab, p. 140. 77

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Ruf has noted, the two images function as pendants.81 While the figure of Francis is an allegory of Hope, Judas is an allegory of Despair, Hope’s antithesis.82 According to Matthew’s gospel, Judas, who had betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver, tried to repent by returning the money to the high priests. But when they rejected him, he went out and hanged himself. Medieval theologians ascribed Judas’s suicide to despair. When a man despairs, he fails to believe that God will forgive him his sins; since by so doing he denies the infinite nature of God’s mercy, despair is a mortal sin.83 If a theological definition such as this was too technical to have much impact on most lay folk, the dramatic story of Judas’s suicide, as depicted in popular texts or images, was a different matter. The Franciscans made use of it to great didactic effect. Bonaventure, in the Tree of Life, explained what happened when Judas saw Christ bound and led away to his death: It was then that the impious Judas himself, driven by remorse, became so filled with self-loathing that he preferred death to life. Yet woe to the man who lost the hope of being forgiven even then—who, terrorstricken by the enormity of his crime, gave up to despair instead of returning, even then, to the Source of all mercy.84

Through his despair, Judas lost the hope of salvation, and his reward was bodily death and eternal damnation. As a failed penitent, the hanged Judas was displayed in the Lower Church as the opposite of St. Francis and of all the hopeful penitents depicted in the Magdalen Chapel.

81 I have argued elsewhere (“Judas and the Franciscans”) that the Death of Judas is aimed primarily at the friars themselves, since the perspective of the fictive arch beneath which the suicide hangs is best viewed by the friars as they exit from the choir and leave the church via this staircase, which leads out into the cloister. However, it is interesting to note that both the frontal pose of Francis and the three-quarters profile of Judas’s body support a counter-clockwise route around the transepts: the pilgrim entering from the Magdalen Chapel would see the image of Francis straight on, but having passed behind the altar into the south transept would view the image of Judas obliquely from the right. 82 For the development of images of Judas as allegories of despair, see Janet Robson, “Speculum imperfectionis: the image of Judas in late medieval Italy,” Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2001, chapter 5, “‘Terror-stricken by the enormity of his crime.’ Judas desperatus.” 83 See for example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, II:II, q. 20, art. 3, resp. 84 The Works of Bonaventure 1, pp. 118–19.


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A few years before the execution of the frescoes in the lower transepts in Assisi, Giotto had painted the Arena Chapel in Padua. Its decorative scheme included a series of Virtues on the south wall, each of which faces its opposing Vice on the north wall. The final pair are Hope and Despair, placed adjacent to the Last Judgment on the west wall. So, as the winged figure of Hope (Fig. 10) flies up to receive from Christ her reward of a crown, she appears to be soaring up towards Heaven and the Blessed.85 On the other hand, Despair (Fig. 11), who is hanging herself, is about to have her soul seized by a winged demon that has swooped down from Hell to claim her.86 Despair is inspired by the Devil, and leads to death and damnation. Although Giotto’s Despair is the earliest-known painting of this Vice in Italian art, she had been depicted as a suicide in French art from the thirteenth century. But in these examples, she was always shown killing herself with a sword or a spear.87 By choosing to make her a suicide by hanging, Giotto associates Despair explicitly with Judas. Given the significance of Judas in the iconography of the Arena Chapel, this was obviously intentional. However, I believe the decision was also an aesthetic one, because it enabled Giotto to intensify the contrast between the vice and the virtue, by showing Despair falling and Hope rising. At Assisi, the Giottesque artists in the north transept continued to use rising gestures to represent hope and falling ones for despair. Both are used to maximum effect in the two posthumous miracles of St. Francis that are placed to either side of Francis Conquering Death, which express in narrative form the message of the allegory. The two miracles have much in common: in both cases a young boy is resurrected after having died in a fall. It general terms, it is not difficult to imagine why this type of miracle was chosen: resurrection is perhaps the most powerful miracle of all, and it is a highly suitable subject to be situated near a Saint’s tomb. In addition, if our pilgrims had just entered the transept from the Magdalen Chapel, they would have seen these images immediately after the Raising of Lazarus, a juxtaposition that would have

85 Selma Pfeiffenberger, “The iconology of Giotto’s virtues and vices at Padua,” Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1966, II:3:3–5. 86 Ibid., II:3:7. 87 Emile Mâle, Religious Art in France: the Thirteenth Century, ed. and trans. Henry Bober (Princeton, 1984), p. 111.

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underlined the theme of Francis alter Christus. Since these miracles appear beneath scenes from the Infancy of Christ, the choice of child miracles also seems natural. But even limiting the choice of scenes to posthumous resurrections of children, the Legenda maior, as well as Thomas of Celano’s earlier Tractatus de miraculis, offer a number of suitable choices. As I discussed above, the depiction of posthumous miracles was often linked to the promotion of a saint’s cult, particularly in its early stages, and with attempts to achieve canonisation. Neither of these conditions applied, since Francis had long been canonised and his cult was well established. Unlike three of the four posthumous miracles depicted on the Tesoro panel, which was probably installed in the Lower Church in time for the consecration of 1253,88 the north transept miracles take place far from the tomb of St. Francis. The first is set in Rome and the other in Suessa, in southern Italy. Both might therefore be seen as advertising the efficacy of Francis as a thaumaturge, even at long distance. In addition, in both cases the miracle is granted in response to the prayers and vows of the distraught parents. In the Miracle of the Roman Notary’s Son, according to Bonaventure, the boy’s father vows “forever [to] be the servant of the saint”, while in the Miracle of the Boy of Suessa, it is the mother who promises “to cover the altar of the blessed Francis with a new altar cloth”.89 But both miracles might also have been chosen for the symbolic possibilities of the fall. The Miracle of the Roman Notary’s Son (Fig. 12), to the left of Francis and Death, uses continuous narrative to combine accident and miracle in a single pictorial frame. The little boy, left unwillingly at home when his mother goes off to church, contrives

88 See Cook, Images of St. Francis (see above, n. 22), cat. no. 27, pp. 62–63. The panel is now in the Museo-Tesoro of the Sacro Convento. 89 Legenda maior, p. 657 and p. 658. This aspect seems to have been more important to Celano, whose versions are more elaborate in both cases. The Roman father also promises he “will regularly visit his holy place”, while the mother in Suessa also promises to “wreathe the altar with silver thread” and to “encircle the whole church with candles”. (Celano, Treatise on the Miracles, trans. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2, p. 421 and p. 423 respectively.) Although these vows have sometimes been interpreted as promises to visit the Basilica in Assisi, this is not stated in the texts: the mother in Rome and the father in Suessa are more likely to have offered their ex votos in their respective local Franciscan churches. See Cannon and Vauchez, Margherita, pp. 57–60 for a revealing account of ex voto offerings made at the shrine of Margherita of Cortona, the devotional practices associated with candles, tapers and girdles, and the encircling of tombs and churches.


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to fall out of the window of the family palazzo, and is killed. On the left of the painting, we see the accident and the despair: the boy is in mid-air, plummeting head-first from the window, distraught onlookers helpless to intervene. The texts explain how, shortly after the tragedy, a Franciscan friar arrives on the scene and asks the father whether he believes in St. Francis’s power to raise his son from the dead, “through the love he always had for Christ, who was crucified to give life back to all”.90 The artist shows the friar and his companion surrounded by the townspeople and clergy in supplication. In the midst of this ritual of prayer, the child is depicted a second time, restored and back on his feet, both hands raised in thanksgiving. We do not see the performance of the miracle by St. Francis, but only an angel flying up towards the top left.91 In Bonaventure’s account of the miracle, it is the boy’s mother who expresses her anguish at the boy’s death, while it is the father who firmly declares his faith in the Saint. The father is probably the elegantly-dressed man wearing a gown and cap who kneels in the foreground, pressing his palms together in front of his chest in prayer. However, the most striking figure in the scene is the young woman in red—surely the mother—shown in profile against the sky at the back. She prays with a gesture similar to her husband’s, but raises her hands much higher, while casting her eyes towards heaven. The mode of praying with palms joined had, in the first half of the thirteenth century, gradually replaced the archaic orans gesture of extended, separated hands.92 Moshe Barasch has argued that while Giotto always used the newer gesture for prayer, he occasionally

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Legenda maior, p. 657. There are remnants of a second figure to the angel’s left, whose halo can just be made out. Because of the poor state of the fresco, it is impossible to identify this figure: is it another angel, or St. Francis himself? The former is more probable, since it seems unlikely that that Francis would have been portrayed with his face obscured by the battlement of the house. 92 Gerhart B. Ladner, “The gestures of prayer in papal iconography of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,” in Didascaliae: Studies in Honour of Anselm M Albareda, ed. S. Prete (Rome, 1961), pp. 247–75, relates the gesture to the feudal ceremony of commendation, but also to its introduction into liturgy in the thirteenth century, including the elevation of the host of the Mass, the consecration of bishops and the rite of penance. William R. Levin, in “Two gestures of Virtue in Italian late medieval and Renaissance art,” Southeastern College Art Conference Review 13, no. 4 (1999), 325–46, points out that all these instances of the gesture’s use are linked by hope, “which is the pivot on which the elements of surrender and offering, of dependence and trust implicit in the gesture of raising and joining the hands all turn.” (p. 334). 91

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employed a variation, in which the hands are raised much higher— as is the case for the mother here. This dramatic gesture seems to be used by the artist to convey emotional intensity.93 The message of hope transmitted through the pose of the praying mother is accentuated through the device of continuous narrative: she is placed back-to-back with an earlier version of herself, who is looking up at her son falling from the window. The juxtaposition of these two episodes allows the artist to contrast the figure of the hopeful mother, reaching urgently up to heaven for aid, with the desperate little boy plunging down from the window behind her. These themes of hope and despair, with their associated rising and falling motifs, are continued in the Miracle of the Boy of Suessa. This story receives an extensive treatment, being divided into two separate scenes on the end wall of the north transept. The entire first scene is a depiction of death and despair (Fig. 13). A young boy is killed when the house in which he is playing collapses. On the left, we see the destruction of the building (another symbolic fall), the dead boy at the bottom, crushed beneath the rubble. The focal point is not the boy’s death, however, but the intense anguish of his mother. The men carrying out the body are met by a group of women, wailing and tearing at their hair and faces in an agony of grief. The mother bends over her son, as his head and arm loll back, falling from the men’s grasp. Clutching his hair, pressing him close, her eyes clench shut, but her open mouth emits a contorted cry of pain and loss. In the second scene (Fig. 14), the mood is swiftly transformed as the miracle unfolds. Now the boy is placed at the top of the picture frame and his movement is upwards. As the funeral cortege arrives in the street below, St. Francis is seen flying down to the boy in the upper room, taking him by the hand and raising him up. Down below, we see the surprise and dawning joy of the men as the amazing news arrives. *

*

*

Our pilgrims, having witnessed this sequence of images of hope, resurrection and saintly power, now leave the north transept and, passing behind the high altar, cross to the other side.94 Immediately

93 94

Moshe Barasch, Giotto and the Language of Gesture (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 68–71. I have deliberately omitted from my argument any discussion of the frescoed


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before them, on the end wall, is Pietro Lorenzetti’s Resurrection Cycle. As in the Magdalen Chapel, the disposition of the narrative now moves from bottom to top, as the theme is transformed from despair into hope. On the right, in the Entombment (Fig. 15), the movement of all the figures is downwards, into the tomb, with the single exception of the Magdalen. She stands in the centre, her haloed head slightly higher than the others, pressing her hands together and raising them high in front of her. Both her red clothes and her powerful gesture recall the mother of the Roman boy in the north transept (Fig. 12). She is the only hopeful figure in the scene, and Lobrichon points out the deliberate contrast that is being drawn here between the Magdalen and the falling body of the despairing Judas, whose suicide is placed at right angles to this Entombment.95 The second scene of despair is the Deposition (Fig. 16). Eschewing Duccio’s composition on the Maestà, where the body of Christ jackknifes forward from the waist, Lorenzetti draws instead on a local Franciscan model. In the nave of the Lower Church, the St. Francis Master had depicted Christ falling backwards from the Cross. Because of the partial destruction of the fresco, we can no longer see the altarpieces attributed to Simone Martini in the north transept and to Pietro Lorenzetti in the south. Consideration of how the side altars and shrines in the sanctuary might have been viewed and used by pilgrims is a subject I hope to return to in the future. I have also assumed that the two transept chapels dedicated to St. John the Baptist and to St. Nicholas of Bari would not have formed an integral part of the pilgrim’s tour. It seems unlikely that pilgrims would have had free access into these private chapels, whose patron was Cardinal Napoleone Orsini. In the St. Nicholas Chapel, which contains the tomb of Napoleone’s brother Gian Gaetano, Orsini ownership could hardly have been asserted more insistently: the family coat-of-arms originally appeared at least 69 times (Lunghi, “La perduta decorazione” [see above, n. 8], p. 500). The majority of these emblems were positioned where they could be seen from outside the chapel—in the stained glass, in the frescoed window embrasures, in the marble socles below the windows, and even worked into the wroughtiron gates that were in still in place across the chapel entrance when Fra Ludovico wrote his description. It is, however, interesting to note that the iconographic choices for these chapels seem to have taken into account the overall scheme for the Lower Church transepts. The St. Nicholas Chapel, like the north transept to which it is adjacent, strongly features child miracles. But perhaps even more interesting for my own argument is the decoration of the counter-facade. Below the dedicatory fresco, images of the Penitent Magdalen and St. John the Baptist, both in a rocky desert terrain, are paired to either side of the entrance arch. Once again, strong exemplars of penitence are offered to the viewer as preparation for entering the sanctuary. No doubt these themes would have been reiterated in the St. John the Baptist Chapel, had its decorative programme been executed. 95 Lobrichon, Assise, p. 134.

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position of Christ’s head, but a later version of the scene attributed to the same artist, on an altarpiece for San Francesco al Prato in Perugia, shows Christ’s head, like the Virgin’s, still upright.96 Lorenzetti’s inspiration for Christ’s head hanging upside-down comes from the Death of the Boy of Suessa (Fig. 13) on the opposite wall, as Max Seidel has pointed out.97 The parallels of meaning offered to the pilgrim are obvious: both scenes depict mothers grieving over their dead sons. Both invite the viewer’s compassio with these displays of maternal anguish. But the Trecento pilgrim is also able to step outside the historical time of the events depicted, and so enjoy the knowledge that, through divine power, both sons will be resurrected, grief will be turned to joy and despair to hope. In the two upper scenes, this journey into joy is fulfilled. In the Harrowing of Hell (Fig. 17), Christ, the symbol of hope, pulls Adam out of Limbo, while Satan (another archetype of Despair) topples backwards, flailing hopelessly, and is trampled underfoot. Again the pilgrim is offered a deliberate iconographic parallel with the boy of Suessa, but this time with the miracle, not the catastrophe. The linked hands of Christ and Adam repeat those of St. Francis and the resurrected boy (Fig. 14). The last scene in the cycle is the Resurrection (Fig. 18). The iconography of Christ stepping out of the sarcophagus, already common in northern Europe, seems to have been adopted here for the first time in Italian painting.98 It imparts a much stronger visual message than the traditional Italian iconography, the three Maries at the empty tomb. Christ is physically rising up, in contrast with the Roman soldiers down below: slumped

96 Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, inv.no.22. For a colour illustration, see The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi, eds. Giovanni Morello and Laurence B. Kanter (Milan, 1999), fig. 6/9, p. 78. This pose was common on Pisan and Lucchese painted crucifixes from the second half of the Duecento. Also, Lorenzetti would probably have been familiar with it from his home city: the mural of the Deposition, recently discovered in the crypt of Siena Cathedral, uses the same iconography. See Sotto il Duomo di Siena. Scoperte archeologiche, architettoniche e figurative, ed. Roberto Guerrini (Milan, 2003), fig. 34, p. 131. 97 Max Seidel, “Das Frühwerk von Pietro Lorenzetti,” Städel Jahrbuch n.s. 8 (1981), 79–158 (on p. 149). 98 Tino da Camaino used the same motif at about the same time, on the tomb of Cardinal Petroni, ca. 1317, in Siena Cathedral. However, there is an example in the stained-glass windows of the apse of the Upper Church at Assisi, dated ca. 1255, created by northern artists. See Frank Martin, Die Glasmalereien (see above, n. 44), cat. no. 45, p. 250 and colour plate 47.


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and slumbering, blind to the knowledge of the Resurrection, these are more figures of despair, in contrast to the hope that is the risen Lord.99 Turning their heads to their left, our pilgrims would find themselves confronting Lorenzetti’s monumental Crucifixion (Fig. 19), the largest single painting in the Lower Church. Once again, what is offered is a contrast between figures of Hope and Despair, this time exemplified by the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ. While the Bad Thief denies the divinity of Christ and perishes, the Good Thief repents and is promised paradise. The Good Thief is placed on Christ’s right here, while below him we see the conversion of the Roman centurion, Longinus, gazing up at Christ from his white horse. Our pilgrims would already have seen these figures pictured in the entrance arch of the Magdalen Chapel (Fig. 6), and although those earlier depictions were by a different artist, Lorenzetti seems to have tried to emulate their characterisations, so that they are recognisably the same two people. As we have seen, the Franciscans considered the Good Thief a penitent—indeed, he is one of the most hopeful of all penitential models, as Bonaventure makes clear in this passage from one of his popular Passion meditations, The Mystical Vine: How great is this robber’s confidence! He knows that everything in him is malice and nothing good, that he is a transgressor of the law, a ravisher of both the goods and the life of his neighbour. Now, in his last hour, on the threshold of death, despairing of this present life, he yet dares to seek reassurance in the hope of that future life which he has forfeited time and again, and has never deserved. Who could despair when this thief still hopes?100

Once more, the messages inherent in the scene are amplified through the interplay of images across the space of the transept. On the opposite wall from the Crucifixion, on the lowest tier, are the Death of Judas (Fig. 9) and the Stigmatisation of St. Francis (Fig. 20). Like the Good and Bad Thieves, Francis and Judas are paired as meaningful opposites. The despairing Judas, having no hope in God’s mercy,

99 Sleep, seen as a miniature death, is a metaphor for despair used by St. Augustine. See Susan Snyder, “The left hand of God: despair in medieval and Renaissance tradition,” Studies in the Renaissance 12 (1965), 18–59 (on p. 58). 100 The Mystical Vine: Treatise on the Passion of the Lord, trans. in The Works of Bonaventure 1, p. 173.

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falls to his destruction and eternal damnation. St. Francis, in contrast, ascends to his mystical union with Christ. The placement of the Stigmatisation opposite the Crucifixion emphasises Francis as the alter Christus, while its pairing with the Death of Judas serves above all to remind our pilgrims of Bonaventure’s assertion that Francis had received the stigmata so that “his most holy flesh . . . would offer by the newness of a miracle, a glimpse of the resurrection”.101 Through the Stigmatisation, Francis received the same promise that Christ had made to the Good Thief, and that he proffers to all hopeful penitents: “Today, you shall be with me in Paradise.” Uplifted by these positive messages, at last our pilgrims reach the tomb of the Saint. As they kneel before the high altar, the view of the west wall offers a final set of images, whose individual meanings are brought out fully through their spatial inter-relationships. The Death of Judas and the Stigmatisation of St. Francis to the south would have been followed by the central, lost Allegory of the Stigmatisation in the apse, with the Glorification of St. Francis (Fig. 4) above it in the vele; finally, to the north, the Miracle of the Roman Notary’s Son and St. Francis Conquers Death. From this position, the pilgrims would for the first time have seen the Death of Judas (Fig. 9) and Francis and Death (Fig. 8) as a pair. These sum up the basic binary oppositions offered throughout the fresco programme: impenitence versus repentance, despair versus hope, death versus life, Hell versus Heaven. The inner pair of Franciscan miracles, the Stigmatisation (Fig. 20) and the Roman Notary’s Son (Fig. 12) remind us of the Saint’s thaumaturgical powers and offer the hope of resurrection. The composition of both these scenes draws the eye towards the centre and upwards: the kneeling St. Francis looks diagonally up to the right, towards the Christ-Seraph, while the angel in the miracle scene flies diagonally up to the left. Lobrichon suggested that the angel was flying towards the tomb of the Saint, whose power it has invoked,102 but I believe the angle of the flight suggests that the angel was actually flying up into the apse. The images in the apse and vele were closely linked. Placed above the body of the Saint, they are the culminating statements in the Lower Church of his power and his glory. In the Glorification (Fig. 4),

101 102

See note 77. Lobrichon, Assise, p. 107.


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Francis is a dazzling, radiant heavenly presence, enthroned and surrounded by adoring angels. Lunghi has argued that the iconography draws, at least in part, on prophecies made in the writings of Ubertino da Casale and Peter John Olivi that Francis would be bodily resurrected in the same way as Christ and the Virgin.103 The Saint’s glorious and incorrupt body is here contrasted with the images below it: to the left, the disembowelled corpse of the damned suicide Judas; to the right, the decomposing cadaver of defeated Death. According to Fra Ludovico’s detailed description of the apse, the central image showed the Saint being crowned by two angels, a winged Crucifix above his head.104 Entering the north transept, the pilgrim had already seen the crown teetering on the head of Death, as Francis overturned its power. Just as in the Arena Chapel Giotto’s Hope reaches for a crown offered to her by Christ (Fig. 10), now the Saint receives the crown of life, the symbol of the “future bliss” that is hope’s reward. But in this apse image, Francis is giving as well as receiving. The Saint was described as standing with his arms open in the shape of the Cross (and, we can be sure, displaying once more his stigmata), sheltering beneath him a group of about forty friars, nuns and other faithful men and women.105 The solitary surviving fragment that has been identified with this fresco is the head of a nun looking up to the left, and she must surely have come from this band of supplicants.106 By kneeling at the tomb, the Trecento pilgrim joined this group of faithful devotees, sharing with them the promise of Francis’s aid, intercession and protection. Pilgrims to the tomb of the Saint would have come there for a mixture of reasons. Some in penitence, some in piety—some to give thanks for grace received, some seeking help in time of trouble or sickness. The programme of Trecento frescoes in the Lower Church would have enhanced the experience of the shrine for each of them,

103

Lunghi, “La perduta decorazione,” p. 508. Fra’ Ludovico, pp. 62–64. This part of the image may be reflected in Simone Martini’s St. Louis of Toulouse altarpiece, where the Saint is also crowned by two angels. For a colour illustration, see Hayden B.J. Maginnis, The World of the Early Sienese Painter (University Park, PA, 2001), colour plate 16. 105 Fra’ Ludovico, p. 63. 106 Szépmüvészeti Muzeum, Budapest, inv. no. 30. For a colour illustration, see Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, Firenze, Galleria dell’Accademia, 5 guigno–30 settembre 2000, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), cat. no. 8, plate 8. 104

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offering its messages of hope, solace and salvation in dramatic visual language, packing a strong emotional punch. Surely no pilgrim leaving the Lower Church at Assisi could doubt Bonaventure’s assertion about St. Francis, in the final chapter of the Legenda maior: The Lord made incomparably more brilliant in death this marvellous man, whom He had made marvellously bright in life.107

107

Legenda maior, chap. 15, par. 1, p. 645.

PROPHECY IN STONE: THE EXTERIOR FAÇADE OF THE BASILICA OF ST. FRANCIS IN ASSISI Daniel T. Michaels

In many medieval Christian churches there is a surprising contrast between the façade’s decoration and that of the interior. Particularly in buildings of the Early Christian period, the exterior is purposely modest, a moral exhortation to the gathering worshippers. It stood in contrast to the more elaborate, often colorful embellishments of the interior, signifying the spiritual riches the believer will receive inside. In keeping with this time-honored tradition, the façade of San Francesco in Assisi (Fig. 1), at first glance, appears to be humble indeed. Upon further consideration, however, the eastern face of the mother church not only presents a true preamble to what the interior holds, but also provides, in abstract terms, an introduction to the memorial tomb of Francis and to the theological sources that emerged from his life. Historians have already made considerable progress regarding the date and artistic origins of the exterior facade.1 This essay focuses where little progress has been made: the articulation of a general theological framework within the façade’s overall message. The striking theological purpose and unity in the design of the exterior façade functions as an introduction to the operative Scriptural hermeneutic among the interior narratives of the basilica. The flat masonry facade looks deceptively simple. It is made up of two superimposed horizontal rectangular tiers surmounted by a triangular pediment of equal width. Rather than the three portals usual on Gothic basilicas of this size, the lowest section has one central arched opening containing two large wooden doors. Each door

1 For a recent introduction and historiography of the exterior facade see Annamaria Iacuzzi, “Basilica superiore: La Facciata,” in La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi 4 vols., ed. Giorgio Bonsanti (Modena, 2002), 4:447–52. For the most extensive study of the Assisi façades see Jürgen Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi (Werl, 1991). For an extensive bibliography on the entire basilica of St. Francis in Assisi see Giorgio Bonsanti, ed., La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, 4:657–96.

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is topped by a trefoil lunette, also of wood, and carved in relief with images of Christ on the left and Mary on the right. The arch is supported by bundles of slim colonnettes and further articulated by a twelve lobed blind rose window between and above the wooden doors. Stretching the width of the façade at the top of the tier is a stringcourse of fantastic creatures and floral designs, with two great eagles positioned like guards at either end. The second tier is ornamented by a single large centralized rose window outlined by four creatures sculptured in the round and centered on a plain cut limestone backdrop. Finally, a triangular pediment with a simple circular window bordered by a frame with four bands of alternating colored limestone crowns the entire structure. A cursory observation of the façade’s form suggests a Scriptural influence. Is the rose window with surrounding creatures associated with a Scriptural theophany (e.g., Ezekiel 1)? Are the creatures a metaphor for the evangelists, or doctors of the church, or the medieval four-fold interpretation of Scripture, or all of the above? What should one make of the eagles of the stringcourse, sitting as they are, perched like Ezekiel’s kings with a vine of creation between them (Ez. 17: 1–10)? What of the double portal facing the east? Are the doors of this memorial church symbolic of the temple of the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, or the heavenly Jerusalem, all of the above, or other? If, in fact, these few seemingly obvious Scriptural metaphors, among other more nuanced allusions, greet the faithful at the entrance of the basilica, what do they suggest about the interior of the church, or the brothers, or the leadership of the community, or the papacy, or the entire Christian faithful? A proper resolution to the above questions begins with Scripture itself, specifically, the prophecy of Ezekiel and John the Evangelist.

Ezekiel and the Apocolpyse The book of Ezekiel begins with a marvelous theophanic vision in Babylon, where Ezekiel received God’s call to be a prophet to Israel. The vision comes to life in a great cloud of “brightness” with “fire flashing continually” (Ez. 1:4). In this cloud Ezekiel saw “four living creatures . . . darting to and fro, like a flash of lighting” (Ez. 1:5, 14). Each of the creatures has four faces: human, lion, ox, and eagle.

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The creatures are banded together through a fantastic mechanism of “wheels within wheels” (Ez. 1:16) to form a throne chariot of God with the capability to move effortlessly “in any of the four directions” (Ez. 1:17). With these heavenly beings came the noise of “many waters” (Ez. 1:24), and the throne of God appeared “like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day” (Ez. 1:28). This vision forms the basis of Ezekiel’s theology: God is not subject to the confines of Judah; rather, God is beyond all limits, boundaries, and is not tied to the temple or its priests and rituals. In fact, Ezekiel says that the people of Israel broke their covenant of faith, and therefore God was free to move from even the most sacred of places. The four creatures and their movement with the wheels symbolically represent God’s reign over every aspect of life, both human and animal. Ezekiel’s visions redefine the Israelites as blessed by the God that moves with them (Ez. 1, 10, 43). Ezekiel’s prophecies also announce doom. God’s glory is withdrawn from Jerusalem (Ez. 11:22–23) thereby dooming it to destruction. The God who had been forgotten by the people became the ultimate judge of those who breached the covenant of faith. As mentioned, Ezekiel’s first vision of the theophany (Ez. 1:4–28) initiates a sequence of doom and complete desolation. God’s communication with Ezekiel confirms the idolatry of Judah and Jerusalem (Ez. 6), and sinners are earmarked for punishment (Ez. 7). The prophecy contains reasons for and descriptions of the impending destruction (Ez. 8–11) and God’s departure (Ez. 11). Ezekiel charts the historical failure of the people (Ez. 12–19) through a series of allegories— e.g., the waif (Ez. 16), the eagles (Ez. 17), and the account of the lioness (Ez. 19)—and then he announces oracles of final judgment (Ez. 20–24) concluding with God’s condemnation over other nations (Ez. 25–32). Whereas judgment and doom characterize the first chapters of Ezekiel’s prophecy (Ez. 1–32), restoration and hope ultimately replace destruction (Ez. 33–48). Ezekiel foresaw a grand recovery of the land and people. The sign of restoration became embodied in a vision of the New Jerusalem. The vision of God, moving into exile on wheels within wheels with the four creatures (Ez. 1, 10–11), appears once again (Ez. 43), but this time it symbolizes God’s return to and restoration of both the temple and the people of Israel. The temple, then, becomes the sign that God has returned, and from this temple new life will spread. Water flows from below the threshold of the temple

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toward the east (Ez. 47:1) where it becomes a river of life: “wherever the river goes, every living creature will live” (Ez. 47:9). The symbolic nature of Ezekiel’s visions and his understanding of God as transcending the people of any particular land became a prologue to New Testament apocalyptic interpretations of Christ and the future glory of God. Ezekiel’s visions are most evident in the imagery of John’s Apocalypse. Just as in Ezekiel, John writes that the presence of God does not require a specific place, temple or ritual. For John, God’s universal appeal and movement are due to the redeeming presence of Jesus. Nevertheless, a new city is measured with precision (Rev. 21:15–27), marking the temple as a sign of the glorified future of the Church. In this temple the thrones of “God and the Lamb . . . will reign forever and ever” (Rv. 22:3, 5). Like Ezekiel, John also announces God’s presence and God’s proclamation to the nations in symbolic terms: the four creatures (Rv. 4:6–8), eagles (Rv. 8:13), mountains (Rv. 21:10), and even the flowing river (Rv. 22).2 John’s association with the imagery of Ezekiel is by no means accidental. The symbols identify the movement of God, and therefore, the path to salvation. The Apocalypse announces that the key to salvation is found in Scripture. Specifically, to embrace the Word is to embrace Christ. In the end, sinners will be destroyed, and the faithful will enjoy eternal glory.

Rose Window and Creatures Four concentric wheels or bands surround a central oculus in the rose window of the exterior façade (Fig. 2). Ornate sculptural patterns connect each wheel. The design of the first and third wheels from the center consists of a series of twisted columns topped with trefoil arches, respectively providing twelve and forty-six openings filled with glass. The second band is made up of a series of fourteen circular sculptures, each hollowed to form a flower with five petals. The fourth and final band, which joins the rose window to the surface of the façade and contains no glass, is lined by a series

2 In Ezekiel the river flows, “from below the threshold of the temple” (Ez. 47:1). For John the river flows from the “throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rv. 22:1) because in the New Jerusalem God becomes the temple (Rv. 21:1).

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of interlocking circles, each connected to the other forming a repeating inverse “S” pattern. Sculptures of four creatures (man, eagle, ox, lion) frame the rose with an implied square.3 They are supported on brackets that extend forward from the face of the façade, each of which is decorated with a floral pattern to match the other elements of the façade. The man and eagle are above the window, to the left and right respectively; the lion, left, and ox, right, are below.4 With the exception of the sculpture of the man, which is also the only sculpture offering a frontal view, each of the creatures has wings. Four features dominate the association between the rose window and the prophecy of Scripture. That is, the rose window contains 1) four bands, or wheels, 2) a central oculus, 3) four creatures, and 4) an intricate geometric arrangement of glass and stone. Wheels: movement and splendor The rose window’s four wheels within wheels and the four creatures that surround them directly evoke the theophany of Ezekiel (Ez. 1) and John’s Apocalypse (Rv. 4).5 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction . . . the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel. When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved (Ez. 1:15–17).

3 The creatures are likely the oldest elements of the façade. Henry Thode, Francesco d’Assisi e le origini dell’arte del Rinascimento in Italia, ed. Luciano Bellosi (1885: repr. Rome, 1993), p. 198. Edgar Hertlein, Die Basilika San Francesco in Assisi: Gestalt, Bedeutung, Herkunft (Florence, 1964), pp. 207–208. 4 The appearance of the ox is somewhat misleading. While the body is clearly that of an ox, the head is that of a lion. As noted by Iacuzzi, the discrepancy between the head and the body is highlighted by the difference in artistic style between the two. The high relief of the body and the different style of the head make authorship very difficult to determine. See Iacuzzi, “Facciata,” p. 452. 5 Painton Cowen maintains that Italian rose windows of the 13th and 14th century are, “nearly always wheels . . . with tier upon tier of spokes forming vast complex structures that look almost like circular viaducts.” They were meant to evoke the vision of Ezekiel, describes Cowen, “where their work was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel (Ez. 1:16), and where the four living creatures came expressly to him, the priest.” See Rose Windows (San Francisco, 1979), p. 33.

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The wheels of the rose window originally contained patterns of mosaic woven into tracks throughout the window, particularly into the base of the twisted columns, the trefoil arches at the top of the columns, the surface of the rosettes in the second band, and the repeating pattern of the outer circle.6 Only remnants of the original mosaic remain (Fig. 3),7 but they still serve to complete each wheel and draw attention to the effect of movement and color. The colors of the marble, in combination with their geometric patterns around the wheel and the vibrant glass behind the stone form a polychromatic effect. There are just enough tiles remaining in grooves that run along the contours of each part of the rose window to imagine the original splendor of each wheel. Ezekiel records a similar splendor in his description of the theophany saying, “Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ez. 1:28). The rose window’s design and ornament, particularly the cosmatesque mosaic, creates the visual effect of separate continuous cycles flowing around the central oculus.8 The rose window’s four colorful wheels within wheels suggest that, like the theophany in the book of Ezekiel, God

6 Cosmatesque mosaic incorporated various pieces of cut marble into elaborate geometric designs. The cosmatesque masters, or Cosmati, are most known for their geometric patterns on the floors of Roman churches. See Giuseppe Sacconi, Relazione dell’Ufficio Regionale per la conservazione dei monumenti delle Marche e dell’Umbria (Perugia, 1891–92, 1900–01), pp. 54–62; Adolfo Venturi, La Basilica di Assisi (Rome, 1908), pp. 44, 47; Beda Kleinschmidt, Das Basilika San Francesco in Assisi. 4 vols (Berlin, 1915), 1:76; Igino Benvenuto Supino, La Basilica di San Francesco d’Assisi (Bologna, 1924), p. 62; E. Hutton, The Cosmati. The Roman Marble Workers of the XIIth and XIIIth Centuries (London, 1950), p. 52; Peter Cornelius Claussen, “Magistri Doctissimi Romani. Die Römischen Marmorkünstler des Mittelalters” Corpus Cosmatorum 1 (1987), 165; Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi, pp. 140–52; Silvestro Nessi, La Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi e la sua Documentazione Storica (Assisi, 1994), pp. 162–63. 7 At the end of the nineteenth century every effort was made to preserve and repair damages caused by earlier restorations and decay. See Frank Martin and Gerhard Ruf, Die Glasmalereien von San Francesco in Assisi: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Gattung in Italien (Regensburg, 1997), p. 290. 8 The geometric design of the rose window, with its variations of spokes, arches, wheels, and mosaic, is commonly attributed to the influence of Umbrian and Roman artistry. See W. Ranke, Frühe Rundfenster in Italien (Berlin, 1968); K. Kobler, “Fensterrose,” in Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 8 (Munich, 1982), pp. 117–129; Adriano Peroni, “Elementi di continuità e innovazione nel romanico spoletino,” in Ducato di Spoleto (atti del IX Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 27 settembre–2 ottobre 1982) (Spoleto, 1983), pp. 683–712.

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has the ability to move in any of four directions. If true, like the temple in Ezekiel and the Apocalypse, the basilica of St. Francis symbolizes a new location for God and the restoration of the Church. Oculus: Christ as the center Ezekiel’s theophany as portrayed in medieval rose windows most likely also pointed to John’s Apocalypse, made evident by the ubiquitous use of the image of Jesus, often as a lamb or in glory, in the central oculus.9 Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered . . . (Rv. 5:6).

At the basilica of St. Francis in Assisi Jesus is represented in the center of the rose window by the Latin script of the first letters of his name “IHS.”10 The four wheels of the exterior that spiral from this center are, in turn, surrounded by four creatures. While there is no explicit representation of Jesus in glory or Jesus as lamb in the rose window, one can speculate that the “IHS ” of the central oculus represents Jesus as portrayed in John’s version of the theophany. Moreover, the counter-façade frescoes portraying the post resurrection scenes of the Ascension and Pentecost suggest that, in fact, the theophany of the rose window is part of a final age of glory, or Parousia, where Jesus renews the Church.11 Nevertheless, the important point is that the rose window places Jesus at the center of the theophany. Thus, the wheels of the rose window, with Christ in the

9 For example, in the south rose of the Cathedral of Chartres (c. 1227), Christ is depicted surrounded by angels and the four symbols of the evangelists (as in John’s Apocalypse). In the outer circle of the Chartres rose there are also twentyfour elders of the Apocalypse. See Cowen, Rose Windows, pp. 10, 59–61. Regarding the central oculus of Italian rose windows see K. Kobler, “Fensterrose.” Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 8 (Munich, 1987), pp. 117–129. 10 The “IHS” script is only readable from the interior counter façade and there is no evidence to support its absence or existence before it was restored along with the rest of the glass in the rose window during the nineteenth century. See note 7 above. 11 As presented in the New Testament, the Ascension becomes the type representing the religious experience of the church through a shifting of a reference to the Pentecost psalm (68:18–19) from Moses to Christ (Acts 2:33–36; Eph. 4:8). In short, the Ascension seems to replace the Parousia as the beginning of Christ’s kingdom (Mt. 13:41; Lk. 23:42–43).

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center, announce one of John’s central insights: God follows the faithful by returning with Christ who sits at the center of the vision, opening the seals of God’s Word. Creatures: four evangelists and four doctors The creatures of Ezekiel each have four faces—man, lion, ox, and eagle—corresponding to the four cardinal points of the compass. In the Apocalypse the four creatures appear as separate beings, but nevertheless are grouped together. From the earliest days of the Christian tradition the four creatures of the theophany have been associated with the four canonical gospels and, consequently, also symbolize Scripture itself. The second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyons speculated that Matthew corresponds to the symbol of the man because the gospel begins with a human genealogy of Jesus, and also because, according to Irenaeus, the gospel emphasizes Jesus’ humanity. Luke begins with priestly duties and temple ceremony, represented best by the figure of the sacrificial ox. Mark’s early mention of the Holy Spirit connected the gospel logically to the eagle, while John’s prologue about Jesus’ “leadership and royal power” identified the book with the lion.12 A few centuries later, Augustine of Hippo, like Irenaeus, identified the ox with Luke, but assigned the lion to Matthew, the man to Mark, and the eagle to John.13 Shortly thereafter, Jerome’s Latin translation of the New Testament, the Vulgate (ca. AD 400), standardized the order of the gospels (1) Matthew, 2) Mark, 3) Luke, and 4) John) and their correlating symbols. Following Irenaeus, Jerome identified Matthew with the man and Luke with the ox, but assigned the lion to Mark: since lions roar in deserted places (Ps. 104:21; Amos 3:4), and Mark begins with the “voice crying in the wilderness” (Mk. 1:3). And finally, John is the soaring eagle which proclaims Jesus as the Word of God.14 Jerome’s nomenclature came to dominate mosaics, frescoes, pulpits, crosses, and so forth, from the fourth century onwards. In short, depictions of the creatures were meant to symbolize Scripture itself.

12 Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 3.11.8, in The Apostolic Fathers 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids, 1985), p. 428. 13 Augustine of Hippo, The Harmony of the Gospels 4.10, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 6, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, 1980), p. 231. 14 Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel 1.1, CCSL 75:54.

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As early as the fifth century the covers of some manuscripts containing Scripture, or commentary on Scripture, were decorated with the cross, and surrounded by the four symbols of the evangelists.15 The images of the cross on subsequent manuscripts, over time, became elaborate, often forming a network of interconnected circular patterns—much like a rose window. The placement of the symbols around many medieval rose windows, including the basilica of Saint Francis, corresponds to these early manuscripts (upper left, man; upper right, eagle; lower left, lion; lower right, ox) and, therefore, they can be categorized as Scriptural covers or introductions. One should recognize that the creatures of the façade of the basilica of Saint Francis, which surround the central symbol of Christ in the oculus, literally carry texts in their respective hands, talons, etc. According to John’s Apocalypse only the lamb is worthy to open the scroll’s seals that will bring new life (Rv. 5:9). On the façade, the scroll is like a roll placed between the claws of the eagle. Tradition has customarily viewed such a roll, or scroll which the eagle holds as the book of Scriptures.16 “On the outside the scroll is written according to the letter; on the inside it is written according to the spirit.”17 In effect, to understand the Word, one must pass from the outside to the inside, that is, from literal to spiritual. As usual the other symbols of the evangelists are depicted on the façade holding codices analogous to modern books. Once again, the basilica appears as much more than a memorial church for St. Francis; it is an introduction to the tomb within the context of God’s Word. The assumption is that the theophany of the rose window, like John’s account,

15 Lawrence Nees argues that the depiction of the four creatures around the cross was particularly evident in covers of Insular manuscripts, with origins reaching back to fifth-century Italy. He attributes the function of these covers as an “apotropaic sign as well as a pictorial assertion of the harmony of the four Gospels.” He attributes the popularity of the image, in part, to the fascination with God’s Word. Lawrence Nees, “A Fifth-Century Book Cover and the Origin of the Four Evangelist Symbols Page in the Book of Durrow,” Gesta 27 (1978), 3–8. See also Carola Hicks, Animals in Early Medieval Art (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 91–96. 16 Henri DeLubac, Scripture in the Tradition, trans. Luke O’Neill (1968; repr. New York, 2000), p. 85. 17 This interpretation of the scroll is found throughout the tradition, particularly, for example, in Origin, In Joannem, 1.5, c. 6 (103); Jerome (PL, 25, 35A; 24, 517C, 631C); Gregory, In Ezechielem, 1.1, h. 9, n. 30 (PL, 76, 883B); Ambrose Autpert, In Apoc., 1.3 (469); Bernard, In Cantica, s. 14, n. 8 (PL, 183, 843B); Richard of St. Victor, In Apoc. (PL, 196, 756B). For a more complete listing see Henri DeLubac, Scripture in the Tradition (New York, 1968), p. 85, note 2.

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leads one to the interior where Christ will “open the seals that will bring new life.” By the thirteenth century the four creatures represented not only the four evangelists, as proposed by Irenaeus and others, but they also symbolized the four doctors of the Church (Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome) and the four senses of Scripture (historical, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical).18 Therefore, the rose windows framed by the symbols of the evangelists not only functioned to introduce the Word, but also to invite viewers into its deeper meaning. In the basilica of Saint Francis, this outside invitation is confirmed when interpreted alongside Scriptural evidence from the whole of the interior.19 Specifically, narratives from the Old and New Testaments decorate the upper levels of the main nave; below them twenty-eight frescoes from Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis (1260–63) correspond to the Scriptural scenes above; the doctors of the church are painted into the vaults of the eastern bay of the main nave; finally, massive portrayals of the four evangelists are painted into the cross vault between the nave and apse. The doctors and evangelists, on opposite ends of the upper church, represent a progression from the Word itself—symbolized by the evangelists above the altar—to interpretation of the Word—symbolized by the doctors above the counter-façade. The connection between the theophany, the evangelists, and doctors of the church became so explicit that by the fourteenth century some churches went so far as to replace the four creatures of the exterior façade with the four doctors, as seen surrounding the rose window of the west façade of the cathedral in Orvieto (Fig. 4).20 The idea, again, was to emphasize the importance of Scripture and its interpretation as a path to Christ.

18 Henri DeLubac, Exégèse Médiévale: Les Quatre sens de l’Ecriture, 2 vols. (Paris, 1959), 1:29. 19 Gerhard Ruf argues that Scripture provides the hermeneutic for understanding the interconnectivity between the many narratives of the interior basilica. Gerhard Ruf, Die Fresken der Oberkirche San Francesco in Assisi: Ikonographie und Theologie (Regensburg, 2004). 20 By the fourteenth century four biographers of Francis were compared to the four evangelists. The Kingship of Francis (1365), written by an unknown author, charts the relationship between the evangelists and the biographers. Each biographer shared the creature of his apostolic counterpart: Thomas of Celano, an angel, Matthew; Leo, a lion, Mark; Julian, an ox, Luke; and Bonaventure, an eagle, John. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols., eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York, 1999), 3:697.

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Geometry: medieval numerology The significance of the theophany of Ezekiel and John as represented on the exterior facade, particularly regarding their apocalyptic forecast, is emphasized further through the geometry within the rose window, connecting it theologically to salvation history and the future of the Church.21 The first band or wheel from the central oculus of the rose window contains twelve openings. The number twelve typically represented the heavenly Jerusalem, which dominates Ezekiel’s and John’s final visions. The number twelve, so significant in the Christian tradition, also corresponds to the twelve tribes and associate groups of twelve (e.g., prophets and apostles). As seen from the interior of the church, the twelve rosettes of the first band glow with brilliant orange and yellow flames, and appear to correspond with the twelve lights resting on the apostles in the massive fresco of the Pentecost painted just below the rose window.22 The second wheel from the center of the rose window contains fourteen florettes, indicating, for example, pairs of seven seals, seven ages, etc., also expressed in John’s Apocalypse. The second wheel could also be interpreted as a whole, with fourteen lights, symbolic of salvation history.23 The third wheel of the rose window opens forty-six times (again through a series of spokes), and can be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on how the number of openings is related to the other levels. The fourth wheel has forty-four interlocked circles, twenty of which are hollow. While it is difficult assert the exact relationship between the geometric repetitions within the rose window

21 The builders of the rose window likely incorporated the medieval numerology made popular by other Gothic structures. For the Gothic characteristics of the façade see Joachim Poeschke, Die Kirche San Francesco in Assisi und ihre Wandmalereien (Munich, 1985), p. 60. For an analysis of medieval architectural geometry and its application to medieval churches, see Nigel Hiscock, The Wise Master Builder: Platonic Geometry in Plans of Medieval Abbeys and Cathedrals (Aldershot, 2000). 22 Due to renovations between 1892 and 1898 the original existence of the flames cannot be determined with certainty. See Martin, Die Glasmalereien von San Francesco in Assisi, 290. 23 For example, the famous Franciscan Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (d. 1274), following the Abbot Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202), often depicted the number fourteen as significant for the divisions of salvation history. Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaemeron, 16 in The Works of Bonaventure, trans. José de Vinck (Paterson, 1970) 5:231–250. See Joseph Ratzinger, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure (Chicago, 1989); Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York, 1985).

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and medieval numerology, it follows—given the other symbolic/ prophetic representations of this exterior façade—that the window more than likely symbolizes theological aspects of the Word and its complexities.

The Stringcourse of Fantastical Animals The stringcourse of animals spans the entire width of the façade and separates the upper and lower levels (Fig. 5). It contains a chain of fantastical animals separated one from the other by floral pediments which support a continuous ledge of alternating vegetation, each with six petals. At the center of the stringcourse is the coat of arms of Pope Benedict XIV, erected in the late eighteenth-early nineteenth century. Finally, two great eagles rest facing the east, each connected at the ends of the floral ledge. The artisans of the basilica of St. Francis (started after 1228) were likely also involved with the façade of San Rufino (consecrated 1228) and, therefore, drew from similar local traditions.24 The two churches face each other on opposite ends of Assisi. The stylistic affinity between the two structures leaves little room to doubt that they bear some relation to each other. In fact, several local figures appear on the counter-façade of the basilica of St. Francis, in particular the figure of St. Rufinus. Furthermore, the animals of the façade’s stringcourse, like the basilica of San Rufino, contain a conglomeration of human and animal forms, with horns, wings, and bodies of reptiles. Jürgen Wiener offers the most extensive analysis of the sculpture of these stringcourse ledges, locating a possible stylistic root in the sculpture of the cathedral of Lucca, Italy, where a similar ledge supports a string of animals.25 Others supply evidence of French origin;26 however, few have considered this portion of the façade from the perspective of its symbolic function. The location of the eagles, each connected by a floral strand containing animals, raises the possibility of a prophetic motif for the

24

Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi, p. 139. Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi, p. 138. 26 Géza de Francovich, “La corrente comasca nella scultura romanica europea. II. La diffusione,” in Rivista del Regio Istituto di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte” (1937), pp. 80–81; Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi, p. 139. 25

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role of Francis in the renewal of the Church. In Ezekiel 17:1–10 the prophet speaks an allegory of the house of Israel, in which two great eagles—each representing a different king—are perched atop two cedars, one in Jerusalem and the other in Babylon. The cedar of Jerusalem had a vine growing around it; while the other was taken from its seed and planted in Babylon with vines connected to Jerusalem. The main thrust of the allegory is to announce Zedekiah’s (one eagle) violation of his fidelity oath to Nebuchadnezzar (the other eagle) as a repudiation of God’s ordering of history. In God’s absence both kings were doomed to fall. The allegory concludes, however, with a messianic promise of restoration: I [the Lord] myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar . . . I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs . . . On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may . . . become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind . . . (Ez. 17:22–24).

In light of the influence of prophecy upon the rose window and symbols of the evangelists, the various creatures and eagles of the stringcourse, stretching as if on a “vine,” from one eagle to the other, are likely symbolic of the Church (Ez. 17:24). However, the key to the allegory is the tender sprig that becomes a noble cedar. As evident from the interior of the basilica, it is Francis who renews the Church through Christ and, as such, he is the “noble cedar” under which creatures of every kind will rest.27 Thomas of Celano (d. 1260), the first biographer of Francis, also uses Ezekiel’s allegory of the house of Isreal to refer to Francis and the Order: In these last times, a new Evangelist, like one of the rivers of Paradise, has poured out the streams of the gospel in a holy flood over the whole world. He preached the way of the Son of God and the teaching

27 The fifteenth scene of the Francis cycle frescoes in the main nave of the upper church depicts Francis’s Preaching to the Birds to the immediate north of the portal. Inspired from the Major Legend of Saint Francis by Saint Bonaventure, the narrative takes place during the final stages of Francis’s spiritual development, during which time he is inspired to embrace all of creation and spread the gospel everywhere—even to the lowest of creatures. The pericope is intended to demonstrate Francis’s condescension and humility—unconditional poverty—through which he is later empowered to ascend like Christ. The idea, of course, is to provide a model for the viewer to follow. To clarify this position the painters of the counter-façade placed the fresco of Christ’s Ascension just above the Preaching to the Birds.

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daniel t. michaels of truth in his deeds. In him and through him an unexpected joy and a holy newness came into the world. A shoot of the ancient religion suddenly renewed the old and decrepit. A new spirit was placed in the hearts (Ez. 11:19; 36:26) of the elect and a holy anointing has been poured out in their midst. This holy servant of Christ, like one of the lights of heaven, shone from above with a new rite and new signs. The ancient miracles have been renewed through him. In the desert of this world a fruitful vine has been planted in a new Order but in an ancient way, bearing flowers, sweet with the fragrance of holy virtues and stretching out everywhere branches of holy religion (Ez. 17:6,7,24) . . .28 The Order and religion of the brothers had begun to spread by the grace of God. Like a cedar in the garden of God (Ez. 31:8) it lifted its crown of merit into the heavens, and like a chosen vineyard it stretched out its holy branches to the ends of the earth.29

While it has been suggested that the two great eagles of the stringcourse represent the historical figures Pope Gregory IX and Frederick II Hohenstaufen, this seems unlikely since by the completion of the façade Gregory IX had already excommunicated Frederick II on more than one occasion. The sculptures of the eagles are probably the most ancient elements of the stringcourse, and were possibly begun during the final years of the reign of Gregory IX, but this proximity alone does not support a connection between Gregory and the eagles.30

28 Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis II:89 in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols., eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York, 1999), 1:259–60. 29 Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis II:100 in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1:270. Thomas makes a similar references in The Treatise on the Miracles of Saint Francis in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 2:400. 30 As mentioned above, Wiener locates the stylistic root of the stringcourse in the sculptures of the cathedral of Lucca, Italy. He explores the possibility of assigning the eagles as symbols for Gregory IX and Frederick II, particularly if they are understood as related to Romance facades such as San Felice in Narco and San Ponziano in Spoleto. However, Wiener also carefully analyzes the façade as a whole with respect to Gothic models, in which case Gregory IX and Frederick II become problematic as symbols for the eagles. Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi, p. 113. Venturi suggests that the eagles are typical of Romanesque churches, and says specifically that the eagles symbolize Frederick II. Venturi, La Basilica di Assisi, p. 49. Venturi’s claim is credible if evidence can be provided of the early existence of the eagles (before 1239 and the deposition of Brother Elias). See Iacuzzi, “Facciata,” p. 452. See also note 29. Elvio Lunghi highlights the significance of Brother Elias, Gregory IX, and the emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen. He notes that the bells of the campanile are inscribed with the date 1239, along with the names of Elias, Gregory IX, and

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However, the other animals of the stringcourse provide more convincing evidence as to the eagles’ symbolic signification. Only some of the animals of the stringcourse are identifiable: basilisks, eagles, dragons, felines, bears, and lions. The lineup is reminiscent of the animals carved in relief on the plinth of the papal throne in the apse of the interior: a lion, a serpent, a basilisk, and a dragon (Figs. 6, 7). The front of the throne is inscribed with the phrase: SUPER ASPIDEM ET BASILISCUM AMULABIS ET CONCULCABIS LEONEM ET DRACONEM (Psalm 91[90], 13).31 According to Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, the psalm resonates with the narrative program of the apse within which the throne is placed. The script and carving of the throne proclaim that “death, sin, the antichrist, and the devil” are overcome by the motherhood of Mary and Christ’s victories.32 Even more significant is the connection between Psalm 91 and Christ Victor, an allusion that, as argued by Lavin, “brings the theological content of the apse cycle to its fullest

Frederick II. According to Cadei, “the construction of the church was favored by a long truce in the dispute between the Empire and Papacy, represented visually by the scaly eagles, symbol of the Counts of Segni from whom Gregory IX was descended, set on the west front and at the base of the piers on the inside of the façade, and the presence of a crowned bust carved on the impost of the four-light window in the south transept, which has been identified as a portrait of Emperor Frederick II. In 1236 the latter had sent a letter to Elias describing the solemn burial of his cousin St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in the church in Marburg that had been dedicated to her. The widow of the Landgrave of Thuringia, she had become a Franciscan Tertiary and had been canonized in Perugia by Gregory IX in 1235. An altar in the north transept of the lower church would be dedicated to her. This would explain the presence of Frederick’s portrait on the outside of the transept, which could not have been placed there after the fall of Elias.” Elvio Lunghi, The Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi (Florence: Scala, 1996), p. 12. However, the symbolic relationship between the façade’s eagles and Gregory IX and Frederick II is problematic due to the uncertain date of their erection. 31 “You shall tread upon the serpent and the basilisk and trample the lion and dragon under foot.” Quoted from Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, The Liturgy of Love: Images from the Song of Songs in the Art of Cimabue, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt (Lawrence Kansas, 2001) p. 110 note 52. The Franciscan hagiographer Ugolino Boniscambi of Montegiorgio also uses Psalm 91 in The Deeds of Blessed Francis and His Companions (1328–1337). “Without the protection of a shield or helmet, but protecting himself with the sign of the holy Cross, he went out the gate with a companion, casting all his confidence on the Lord who makes those who believe in him tread unharmed on the basilisk and the asp, and trample not only the wolf, but even the lion and dragon,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3:482. 32 Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, The Liturgy of Love, pp. 15, 110 notes 54 and 55. According to Lavin, “Mary’s wisdom is the undoing of the sin of Eve, as she “treads upon the lion and the adder”; her wisdom replaces sin.”

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bloom.”33 The idea comes from the Gospels of Luke and Mark where Christ gives the disciples the power to tread on serpents, scorpions, and over the power of the enemy (Lk 10:19), and more important where Christ mandates the disciples to preach and assures them that belief in him will protect them from evil, even giving them power to cast out demons and pick up snakes (Mk. 16:15–19). Through allusions to the Ascension in carvings on the plinth of the papal throne, “the Franciscan brothers are enjoined to preach in the manner of the apostles, from the heart of San Francesco in Assisi, the heart of Rome, and the heart of the Church.”34 This aspect of the apsidal program becomes explicit on the counter-façade in the paintings of Christ’s Ascension and Francis’s preaching to the birds, the final scenes before exiting the tomb of Francis. If in fact the animals of the papal throne and stringcourse of the façade bear some relationship to one another, then the two portraits painted on the wall above the throne provide some clues about the great eagles of the stringcourse (Fig. 8).35 The portraits represent the papal mentors of the basilica, Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241), who donated the land and approved its construction,36 and Pope Innocent IV, who dedicated the building on May 25, 1253.37 The two eagles could be symbols for these two popes who, like the prophecy of Ezekiel explained above, provide the foundation from which a “sprig” will grow to renew the Church.

33

Lavin, The Liturgy of Love, p. 15. According to Lavin, the key to the program of the apse is provided by the scheme of the vault and the reference to Nicholas III’s Romanitas that appears in the south web that holds the figures of St. Mark. Lavin, The Liturgy of Love, p. 47. 35 Antonio Cadei dates the throne to just after the middle of the century, when Pope Innocent IV consecrated the basilica. He identifies a possible link between the throne and the doorway to the north transept of the upper church and its corresponding stairway, each of which is decorated with “leafy claws interwoven with reptiles and scorpions.” As such, the doorway appears as a private Papal entrance to the adjacent convent. Furthermore, Cadei associates the popes of the apse with the eagles carved at the base of the columns in the counter façade and the two great eagles of the exterior façade. Antonio Cadei, “The Architecture of the Basilica,” in Patriarchal Basilica in Assisi. Saint Francis: Artistic Testimony, Evangelical Message, eds. Roberto Caravaggi, Oreste Picari, Vittorio Crepaldi, and Antonella Calabrese. trans. Kate Singleton (Milan, 1991), pp. 68–70. 36 Gregory IX, Recolentes qualiter in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1:564–65. 37 For the identity of the Papal portraits in the apse, see Eugenio Battisti, Cimabue (Milan, 1963), 37. 34

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In light of the symbolic function of the stringcourse, associated as it is with the prophecy of Ezekiel and the tomb of Francis, one can credibly entertain the possibility of another stylistic origin; the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the tomb of Christ. In 325–326 A.D., Christians looking for Golgotha destroyed the Temple of Aphrodite and found what they believed to be the tomb of Christ. Shortly thereafter the emperor Constantine commissioned the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the same site. The church was consecrated in September 335 A.D., and has undergone many complex renovations and additions. Twelfth century pilgrims make mention of its various holy aspects, making specific note of its marble floors, doors, altars, bells, etc.38 Of particular interest is a figurative lintel originally on the east portal, dominated by a vine-scroll motif with human and animal figures enmeshed in its spirals (Fig. 9). The spiraling branches of the vine-scroll lintel form round “medallions,” with naked youths, predatory birds, and hybrid figures. Some suggest that the lintel portrays a symbolic representation of the fate of sinful humanity, the naked youths trapped in the coils of hell and threatened by vice and evil. Others suggest that the program is based on the “Tree of Life”, a medieval symbolic representation of all of creation redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ.39 The affinity between the vine-scroll lintel and the vine stringcourse of the basilica of Saint Francis is striking. Both “vines” adorn the eastern façade of each respective tomb, Francis and Christ, and both symbolically address the fate of humanity and the universal Church with respect to Christ.

Double Portal The entrance to the upper basilica of St. Francis opens through two doors framed by a series of colonnettes which band together to form an arch over each door (Fig. 10).40 A trefoil arch delimits the inside

38 Martin Biddle, Gideon Avni, Jon Seligman, and Tamar Winter, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (New York, 2000), p. 72. 39 Biddle, et al., The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 80. 40 Wiener dates the construction of the entrance to sometime after 1270–71. The wood for the doors of the façade did not arrive until 1271. A document from 1271, quoted by Giuseppe Zaccaria, contends that Ugolini Manunsie gave five poplars from his farm for the door of the basilica. See Giuseppe Zaccaria, “Diario storico

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top of each door, with Francis and Mary carved in relief above.41 A series of colonnettes on the outermost edge of both doors continues upward following the line of the splay. The capitals of the colonnettes and the outermost arch that tops the double portal consist of floral leaves. Below the arch that frames both portals there is a blind rose. This rose consists of twelve twisted colonnettes—much like the twisted columns of the first band of the great rose window in the tier above. Since early Christianity, sanctuaries were usually placed in the east, thereby locating the portals in the west.42 However, in some of the sanctuaries of Rome, in particular Old St. Peter’s, the orientation of the façade was to the east, the reverse of the early Christian and medieval tradition of facing the façade toward the west and the sanctuary in the east. This arrangement, not unusual in Constantinian churches, was to enable the rays of the rising sun to enter the doors and rose window and it also aligned the churches with the Scriptural theophany of Ezekiel and John. “The gate [of the temple] faced east. And there the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east” (Ez. 43:1–2)—the direction from which the Lord had departed. At old St. Peter’s, at the vernal equinox, the great doors of the porch and those of the church were thrown open at dawn to allow the first beams to illuminate the Apostle’s shrine.43 If one considers that the basilica of Saint Francis mimics Old Saint Peters with its double parallel of Old Testament and New Testament frescoes in the main nave, among many other similarities, its eastward orientation is not altogether surprising.44

della Basilica e Sacro Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi (1220–1927),” Miscellanea Francescana 1 (1963), p. 101; Wiener, Die Bauskulptur von San Francesco in Assisi, p. 126. 41 According to Silvestro Nessi the current doors must be dated to the eighteenth century, but the carvings above the door of Francis and Mary in the arches date to the sixteenth century. Silvestro Nessi, La Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi e la sua Documentazione Storica (Assisi, 1994), p. 489. 42 Giuseppe Rocchi demonstrates that from the perspective of architectural form, the upper church of the basilica must face the east, with the apse in the west. However, this does not limit discussion about the application of symbolic associations between the artistic elements of the façade and its eastward orientation. Giuseppe Rocchi, “L’architettura della Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi” In La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, 4 vols, ed. Giorgio Bonsanti (Modena, 2002), 3:17–49. 43 James Lees-Milne, Saint Peter’s: The Story of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (Boston, 1967), p. 77. 44 Marilyn Aronberg Lavin identifies the “double parallel” as one of several pro-

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Gothic and Umbrian façades typically have three entrances, or at least a series of three double portals, representing the Trinity. As mentioned above, the conclusion of the book of Ezekiel centers on a vision of the restoration of the temple, which for Ezekiel represents the return of the glory of the Lord. For Ezekiel, the temple is the sign of a new age. In his description of this new temple, Ezekiel reveals that, “the nave and the holy place [sanctuary] had each a double door” (Ez. 41:23). The double portal of the basilica of St. Francis seems to further confirm the symbolic theophany of the other levels of the exterior façade. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher appears to be a likely prototype for the façade of the basilica of Saint Francis. Both churches contain an eastern façade with double doors, both have a vine-scroll motif, and both are tombs. Gregory Armstrong maintains that the church of the Holy Sepulcher is the classic type of holy place where God has been made manifest, particularly regarding its function as a new temple.45 According to Armstrong, throughout the centuries Christians have transferred many Jewish traditions of Jerusalem as the Holy City from the temple to the Holy Sepulcher. Jesus Christ is identified as the founder of Christianity and the New Jerusalem, a term the early church historian Eusebius specifically applied to the church of the Holy Sepulcher. So the Holy Sepulcher was both tomb and temple, representing the death and resurrected Jesus of the Parousia. The same metaphor can be applied to the basilica of Saint Francis, implying that Francis, like Christ (alter Christus) renews the Church. The return of God’s glory, for both Ezekiel and John, was ultimately marked by new life pouring forth from God. In the case of the prophets, water flowing from the temple (Ez. 47) symbolized God’s return and spread to the twelve tribes (Ez. 47,48): Then he brought me [Ezekiel] back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward totypical patterns of Italian narrative cycles. Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600 (Chicago, 1990), pp. 1–12. On the Roman influence on the basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi see Hans Belting, Die Oberkirche von San Francesco in Assisi: ihre Dekoration als Aufgabe und die Genese einer neuen Wandmalerei (Berlin, 1977). 45 Gregory T. Armstrong, “Constantine’s Churches: Symbol and Structure” in Studies in Early Christianity: A Collection of Scholarly Essays, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York, 1993), pp. 1–12.

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daniel t. michaels the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar (Ez. 47:1).

The water flowed from the temple, eventually becoming a river. “Everything will live where the river goes,” says Ezekiel (Ez. 47:9). This new water of God “from the sanctuary” (Ez. 47:12) of the temple defined the boundaries and people of the world (Ez. 47:13–23; 48). Incredibly, the exterior façade of the basilica of St. Francis also concludes its theophany with flowing water. For literally flowing “from below the threshold” of the basilica “toward the east” is an aqueduct commissioned by brother Elias.46 The aqueduct not only flowed “toward the east,” but also “flowed down from below the south end of the threshold, south of the altar” (Ez. 47:1) (Fig. 11). The aqueduct and respective fountains no doubt served a literal function of providing for pilgrims. However, in light of close affinities between the exterior façade and the prophetic imagery of Ezekiel and John, it seems likely that the water is also symbolic of the memorial basilica of Francis as the foundation for new life in the Church.

Conclusion Like Ezekiel’s image of the temple, the artistry of the exterior façade portrays a new age of glory. Its double doors facing the east—looking for the returning Lord—open to the tomb of Francis. From the perspective of Ezekiel’s allegory of the temple, Francis becomes a key player in salvation history. The theophany of the rose window and surrounding evangelists confirms God’s presence. The sculptures of the stringcourse of animals provide further indication of the association between the prophets of old and the status of the Church, particularly regarding Roman patronage. The basilica is a sort of New Jerusalem, inspiring a new age for the entire Church.47 The

46 See Giuseppe Rocchi, “L’architettura della Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi” In La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, 4 vols, ed. Giorgio Bonsanti (Modena, 2002), 3:20, 90–91. 47 Interpretations of the apocalyptic realization of the New Jerusalem in Italy were not new within the western tradition. The Pseudo-Joachimite Commentary on Ezekiel, for example, proposes that a modern exile brought about a new religious

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conception of the exterior façade offers new insight into the famous dictum from early Franciscan hagiography: “Francis, rebuild my church.”48 Even before the beginning of the construction of the façade Gregory IX announced his intentions for the construction of the memorial church in Recolentes qualiter (1228): We recall how the sacred plantation of the Order of Lesser Brothers began and grew marvelously under blessed Francis . . . so that in the desert of this world the beauty of holy religion seems to come from the aforesaid Order. Thus it seems to us both fitting and opportune that for the veneration of the same Father, a special church should be built in order to hold his body.49

Coming from “the desert of this world,” the exterior façade likely identifies the basilica and “the holy religion” as a sign of restoration and, like the restored temple of Ezekiel, and the New Jerusalem of John, the return of the glory of God from exile (Ez. 43). One of the masterminds of the program of the interior of the upper church has been identified as Jerome of Ascoli, who succeeded St. Bonaventure as minister general of the Friars Minor. As minister general (1279) he reintroduced the pictorial decoration banned by the chapter at Narbonne in 1260. He declared that, “the Church Militant must appear as the new holy Jerusalem, sent and beautified by the Lord, like the bride going forth to her spouse.”50 The theophany of the rose window and evangelists puts into perspective its reference as the caput et matrem—the head and mother— order symbolized by Ezekiel’s temple on the mountain. In other Pseudo-Joachimite literature Italy is presented as the new Holy Land. See Stephen E. Wessley, Joachim of Fiore and Monastic Reform (New York, 1990), pp. 61–80; Weiler, “Gregory IX, Frederick II, and the Liberation of the Holy Land, 1230–9,” p. 198. Apocalyptic literature, particularly that of Joachim of Fiore and his followers, strongly influenced Franciscan hagiography and art. See Richard K. Emmerson and Ronald B. Herzman, The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia, 1992). 48 Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, 10. In Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. The Prophet, 3 vols, eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York: New City Press, 1999), 2:249. 49 Gregory IX, Recolentes qualiter in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols, eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York, 1999), 1:564–65. 50 Jerome of Ascoli did initiate the painting of the interior before the completion of the façade (ca. 1271) and, therefore, cannot be considered as an organizer of the façades decoration. See Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600 (Chicago, 1990) pp. 31, 303 note 58. Quote cited by Battisti, Cimabue (Milan, 1963) pp. 38–39.

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found in an inscription outside the Sacro Convento next to the entrance of the lower church of the basilica. Since its construction the basilica of St. Francis in Assisi has been criticized for its ostentatious design in honor of the poor, simple Francis. According to his biographers (Thomas, Bonaventure, etc.), Francis identified the small, simple Portiuncula as his choice for representing the community.51 However, if one takes into account the prophetic theophany of the exterior façade, it becomes clear that the basilica was never intended as a replacement of the Portiuncula or a repudiation of regulations restricting decoration in Franciscan structures.52 Rather, the basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, like the prophecy of Ezekiel and John, marks the presence of a moving God who finds rest and roots in the Order of Lesser Brothers as a model for the whole church. The exterior façade does not mirror the poor Francis. Instead, the glorious theophany of the basilica aligns the mystery and message of Francis with the apocalyptic New Jerusalem and, as such, appears to all believers as a sign of restoration. The basilica likely takes its cue from the Lateran Basilica in Rome, the “head and mother” of the entire Christian church, an association that, no doubt, Pope Gregory IX was well aware.53 The artistic and theological expression of the exterior façade of the basilica of St. Francis provides the preamble to the theology expounded inside the basilica. The intention, then, of the exterior façade is to situate Francis and the Order within the context of the Word, particularly as it relates to Christ. The exterior façade’s consistent apocalyptic presentation of Ezekiel and John as applied within the context of the Franciscan tradition, alerts viewers to the significance

51 For multiple references to the role of the Portiuncula in the hagiographic tradition see Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Index (New York, 2002), p. 173. 52 Some claim that when Gregory IX designated the basilica as the “Head and Mother of the Order of Minors,” he transferred the regency of the Order from the Portiuncula to the basilica. See Leone Bracaloni, L’arte francescana ella vita e nella storia di settecento anni (Todi, 1924), p. 81. 53 The liturgy of the feast of the Lateran basilica to this day incorporates the same symbolic imagery as the art of the basilica. That is, the readings include Ezekiel 47:1–2,8–9,12 (water flowing from below the threshold), such as found on the exterior facade. In the Roman Rite for the liturgy of the Word on the feast of the Lateran there is juxtaposition between Ezekiel chapter 47 and the first epistle to the Corinthians 3:9–11,16–17, where believers are identified as the new Temple. Ultimately, the basilica makes a similar charge as participants in the visual program at Assisi are given an eschatological challenge to become the new temple of God.

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of the Word in the Order of Lesser Brothers and the Church’s restoration. By identifying Francis, the Order and the basilica with the theophany of Ezekiel and John, the façade more or less commits the interior to explain Francis’s role in salvation history—indeed, to explain his role as a participant in God’s Word.

CIMABUE AT ASSISI: THE VIRGIN, THE ‘SONG OF SONGS,’ AND THE GIFT OF LOVE1 Marilyn Aronberg Lavin

In the year 1228 Pope Gregory IX donated property in Assisi to house a shrine to St. Francis, and there began an epoch in which the Roman Church Militant would crusade for universal sovereignty in a new guise. San Francesco alter christus and his friars would be the new apostles, advocates of the humble virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience. With their innovative technique of preaching in the streets they would, with papal support, help to re-conquer Jerusalem and Christianize the known world. Their right to take on this important role came from the paradigm of all gifts, God’s charity, as St. Paul defined it, “the gift that was to be preferred to all others.” [1 Cor. 13:1] Their mission had been passed down from God-theFather to his Son, from Christ to his mother, and from Mary directly to the Franciscans, the soldiers of God in a new campaign to win the souls of the Orthodox, the Jews and the Muslims.2 By the last quarter of the century the massive two-level Basilica at Assisi was virtually complete, as was the program for the spiritual conquest that would be set out in the form of fresco cycles on the walls of the Upper Church.3 The vast and unified pictorial program, one of the first of its kind in Western art, celebrates the Franciscan enterprise under three devotional rubrics: the Old and New Testaments on the upper nave walls, St. Francis on the lower walls, and the Virgin Mary, patron of the order, in the apse.4 In the latter, Mary is presented in her fullest manifestation—as Ecclesia, Mother, and Bride—

1 The material of this article is extracted from two earlier publications: Marilyn Aronberg Lavin and Irving Lavin. Liturgia d’Amore: Immagini dal Cantico dei Cantici nell’ Arte di Cimabue, Michelangelo and Rembrandt. (Modena, 1999), 19–86, and The Liturgy of Love: Images from the Song of Songs in the Art of Cimabue, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. (Lawrence, KA, 2001), pp. 4–47. 2 K.E. Kirk, ed., The Apostolic Ministry. (London, 1946). 3 Basilica Patriarcale in Assisi. San Francesco. Testimonianaza Artistica/Messaggio Evangelico. (Milan, 1991). 4 Hans Belting. Die Oberkirche von San Francesco in Assisi, (Berlin, 1977).

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the embodiment of all-embracing love, one of the guiding principles of the Franciscan charge. To express visually these theo-political tenets, the patrons of the project chose the painter Cimabue, whose vigorous new style matched the emotional power and naturalistic simplicity of their teaching. Cimabue probably came to Assisi in the years just after 1270, painting fresco cycles in the apse, transept, crossing vault. He was a highly experimental artist, and just as he gave his figures a new impression of life and his compositions a new sense of space, he sought to enrich the pictorial effects of buon fresco by painting highlights with metallic lead white. This daring experiment, unfortunately, had disastrous results, since the lead oxidized and ultimately turned black. However, once we set this damage aside, it becomes evident that beside a craftsman-painter of high skill, Cimabue was also a thinker who could translate complex ideas and attitudes into visual terms. Because of the ruinous condition of the frescoes, in some instances whole scenes were recast by well-meaning, but rather misguided restorers. Happily a number of early nineteenth-century artists made drawings of the frescoes on which we can rely for information that would otherwise be lost.5 Cimabue’s Life of the Virgin embraces the papal throne which dates from the time of Innocent IV who consecrated the partially finished building in 1253.6 The cycle is remarkable because it is the first in the history of art to focus, not on Mary’s motherhood, but on Mary herself. The Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration, Presentation/ Purification, and Flight into Egypt are not represented in the frescoes, nor is any Marian scene from Christ’s later life. This extraordinary emphasis on Mary as an individual defines her as the embodiment of Franciscan virtue. Her personal biography of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the will of God identifies her dedication to the 5 Giorgio Vasari. Le Vite de’ Più Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori ed Architettori, 6 vols. Ed. R. Bettarini and Paola Barocchi (Florence, 1962), 2:36–37; Leonetto Tintori, “Il Bianco di piombo nelle pitture murali della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi,” in Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, 2 vols., ed. Irving Lavin and John Plummer (Princeton, 1977), 1:437–44. John White, “Cimabue and Assisi: Working Methods and Art Historical Consequence,” Art History 4 (1981), 355–83. Joachim Ziemke, “Ramboux und Assisi.” Städel-Jahrbuch 3 (1971): 167–212. 6 Michele Cordaro. “L’abside della basilica superiore di Assisi. Restauro e ricostruzione critica del testo figurativo,” in Roma anno 1300, Atti della IV Settimana di Studi di Storia dell’arte medievale dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza” (19–24 May 1980), pp. 119–25, ed. Anna Maria Romanini (Rome, 1983).

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Franciscan order, and, through her love, verifies the Franciscan claim to the role of privileged guide to the soul’s salvation. From a narrative point of view, the cycle is divided into two “chapters”: the first describes her conception and childhood, and the second, her death and glorification. The story begins on the left side wall, and continues on the right.7 The first scene takes place when an angel of great size appears to Joachim to announce his wife Anna’s conception. The sequence then jumps across the space of the apse to the upper tier of the right wall, where Anna lies in bed and the newborn Mary, accompanied by midwives, rests on the floor. The next move is back to the left wall, second register, and what originally was surely a scene of Mary’s Presentation in the Temple, although it has been greatly altered. The chronology then jumps again, back to the right wall, where the fourth scene, on the second tier, refers to Mary’s marriage to Joseph. Neither the betrothal nor the wedding, the couple is shown walking off to the left under a portable canopy or “huppah,” carried on staves by four youths. The moment, new to history of art, is just after the ceremony when Mary and Joseph leave the Temple to return home. We can now see that the peculiar arrangement of the scenes, jumping back and forth from side to side, is actually quite rational. The story is organized in concentric arcs on three levels, the upper two of which we do not at first perceive because they are interrupted by the three large stained-glass windows. The lowest tier, below the windows, follows in sequence around the polygonal plan, for the second chapter of the narrative. In the four episodes of Mary’s Last Days the extraordinary gifts bestowed on Mary are made visible. According to Bonaventure, the leading Franciscan theologian contemporary with the frescoes, Christ gave her gifts, four in number: 1) having returned to his father after death, Christ descended to be with her; 2) on earth, he received her; 3) after her assumption, he enthroned her; and lastly, in heaven, he sits with her.8 He gives these gifts freely in gratitude to her as

7 Detailed illustrations of the apse frescoes can be found in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Figs. 6–21. 8 Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. Opus Omnia. 10 vols. (Florence, 1882–1902), 9, Serm. V, (699a–700b), sermon on Cant. 4 Veni de Libano. The last part of the passage (694a) reads: Mary having come before her Son, he leaned toward her physically, he held her in his arms with most tender affection, inviting her to mount

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his mother, more broadly, as Ecclesia, representative of the church and all members of that congregation, and more specifically, as patron of the Franciscan order. Cimabue’s great accomplishment was to transform these complex notions into visual form. While the theme of the “Last Days,” had been developed in the previous century for the sculptures of the great cathedrals of northern Europe, Cimabue made drastic changes in both its form—nothing of this monumental size had been seen before—and its subject matter.9 “Mary’s Farewell to the Apostles” represents a moment that had never before been put into visual form.10 In a remarkable architectural ambient, Mary lies with her head on a pillow, still alive. The apostles, seated around her couch, have been miraculously transported from the four corners of the earth to be at her side at the moment of death. They make various gestures of mourning; the two in the center foreground are in a solemn disputation, one counting out on his fingers the arguments in predicting a coming miracle. To the right, a thirteenth togate figure, holding a scroll, can be identified as Dionysius the Areopagite, whose story is known through the fifthcentury writings of an anonymous writer whom we today refer to as Pseudo-Dionysius; writing as Dionysius, he claimed to have “witnessed” Mary’s death.11 Pseudo-Dionysius reports that as soon as Mary understood she was about to die, she was taken with a great the throne placed at his right. Triple is this throne on which Maria sat, corresponding to the three virtues of chastity, poverty and humility. It is in fact an ivory throne for her pure chastity, a throne of sapphire the color of heaven for her poverty, with which disdaining terrestrial things, she loved only the heavenly; a throne luminous from the sun for the humility that persuades her always to try to hide and cover herself. See also Emanuele Chiettini, La dottrina di S. Bonaventura sull’Assunzione di Maria SS (Rome, 1954), pp. 116 ff. Here Bonaventure follows the definition of Bernard of Clairvaux: Opera Omnia, IX, Sermon 3, 693–95. 9 “Last Days” series (all reproduced in Willibald Sauerländer. Gothic Sculpture in France 1140–1270, trans. Joseph Sondheimer. [London, 1972]) are found at Senlis, west portal, 1170, pls. 42, 43; Nôtre Dame, Mantes, west portal, 1180, pl. 47; north transept, central doorway, 1205–1210, pls. 77–79; Nôtre Dame, Paris, west portal, left doorway, 1210–1220, pl. 152. See also Gertrude Schiller. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 4 vols. (Kassel, 1980), 4:2, 348–415, figs. 587–729. 10 Reproduced in color in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 15. 11 As pointed out by Millard Meiss, “Reflections of Assisi: A Tabernacle and the Cesi Master,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Mario Salmi, 2 vols., ed. Lionello Venturi (Rome, 1962), pp. 75–111, esp. 83–85. These writings, often incorrectly thought to be by a disciple of St. Paul, are rather by a Greek author, who wrote between 490–531. He describes his observations at the Dormition in his De divinis nominibus, ( J.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca. 162 vols. (Paris, 1858–66), 3, col. 2, 79).

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anxiety, fearing to see the Prince of Darkness and other ugly spirits at the moment of death. She tells the apostles that they have been brought thither to comfort her in her anguish. This incident was repeated in many other descriptions of her death, one of which says her terror was eased by being “surrounded by lighted torches and lanterns.”12 In the fresco, the three lamps hanging from the ceiling—rather out of the ordinary domestic details for this period— should be understood as emitting the light that was meant to ward off Satan’s darkness. Bonaventure asserted that Christ, for all his love for his mother, did not accord her the privilege of immunity to death. “It would not have been convenient,” he says, “if the son of God had an immortal mother, while he himself was mortal. Since he died, she must have died.”13 He was responding to the long standing Orthodox belief that Mary ended her life not with dying, but with “going to sleep,” that is, with the “Dormition.” Thus, showing a scene of Mary’s preparation for death underscored the Franciscan position that, like Christ, Mary died a true physical death. The second scene responds to actual images of the Byzantine Dormition, by making significant changes. In the usual fashion, Mary’s body lies parallel to the picture plane with Christ behind the bier, and the apostles in attendance.14 But Christ is positioned much higher than normal and he is uniquely accompanied by a great multitude of figures. These beings are described in the sources as showing further honor to Mary. They are “companies of angels, troops of prophets, hosts of martyrs, legions of confessors, and choirs of virgins,” who descended about the third hour of the night, taking their places as Mary’s soul left her body and flew into Christ’s arms.”15 And indeed, the major point of the scene is to show Christ holding a small swaddled, infant-like figure that represents the soul of Mary. 12 Gabriete M. Roschini, Lo Pseudo-Dionigi l’Areopagita e la Morte di Maria SS (Rome, 1958), traces the history of Dionysius’s so-called account (which was expanded to include the entire sequence through the Assumption) and its influence throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance up to modern times. Roschini shows that by the 7th–8th century, the text had become a major proof of the bodily Assumption, and pseudo-Dionysius a major authority on the subject. 13 Chiettini, La dottrina, 7. 14 Reproduced in color in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 16. 15 Pseudo-Melitus as quoted in Montague Rhodes James. The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1953), p. 212, and Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. 2 vols., trans. W.G. Ryan (Princeton, 1993) 2:79.

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The next scene concerns the resurrection of Mary’s body. The first monumental Assumption of the Virgin in Italian art (Fig. 1),16 it is based on the traditional motif of the Assumption introduced in Northern Europe, and drastically changed not only in scale but also in content. The new form promulgates publicly, for the first time in visual form, the Franciscan interpretation of the belief in Mary’s survival in the flesh. The apostles flank her open sarcophagus strewn with flowers and grave cloths, quite out of the ordinary at this time, denoting that the body is already gone. The polemical aspect of the scene, as we shall see shortly, is made manifest by its allusion to the Song of Songs, Cantico dei Cantici in its Christianized interpretation, and to the new Franciscan ideology of the love of God as a spiritual gift. The most striking aspect of this image is that Mary, rather than being alone in a mandorla, is accompanied by Christ. It can therefore be thought of as representing the second of her specific gifts, namely, her reception by the second person of the Trinity. But it is the form in which Christ receives her that is truly extraordinary. Seated side by side, Mary to the left, she and Christ are engaged in an embrace so passionate that their limbs entangle and the outlines of their bodies seem to merge. As with most of Cimabue’s scenes, the condition of the Assumption is such that we can make out only the general outlines: four supporting angels, Christ’s crossednimbus that breaks through the frame of the mandorla; the pattern on Mary’s robe. Much of the rest is lost. However, by a series of historical events we can reconstruct the action of the figures quite accurately. In the 1950s a large altarpiece was discovered, the main panel of which depends directly on Cimabue’s image (Fig. 2).17 Attributed to the Maestro di Cesi, and dated about 25 years later, until the mid 19th century it was in the cloistered Augustinian convent of Santa Maria della Stella in Spoleto.18 It now belongs to the

16 Our Fig. 1 is a detail of the central image. The full scene is reproduced in color in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 17. 17 Fig. 2 is a detail of the central panel; for a color reproduction of the entire altarpiece see Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 22. The relationship was discovered by Millard Meiss, “Reflections of Assisi.” 18 Now see Bianca M. Fratellini. “Giuseppe Sordini e le vicende del Dossale di Cap-Ferrat e delle Croci dipinte,” in Scritti di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in onore di Carlo Pietrangeli, ed. V. Casale, F. Coarelli, and B. Toscano, (Rome, 1996), pp. 271–78; also Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, “The Stella Altarpiece: Magnum Opus of the Cesi Master,” Artibus et Historiae 44 (2001), 9–22.

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Louvre (actually in St. Jean Cap Ferrat, southern France) and has been cleaned and beautifully restored. At the top of the central panel a liturgical antiphon is inscribed: ASSU(M)PTA E(ST) MARIA IN CELU. Below, Christ and Mary are seated together in positions similar to those in Assisi. But now we are able to see them clearly: he has his left arm around her shoulder and holds her tenderly with his right. This gesture unmistakably refers to a beautiful line from the Song of Songs used since the ninth century in the liturgy of August 15, the Feast of the Assumption: “leva eius sub capite meo et dextera illius amplexabitur me” [His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me, Cant. 2:6 and 8:3 ].19 At the same time, Mary’s response, bending forward toward Christ, her forehead touching his cheek, reflects a line from the same poem: “quae est ista quae ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens et nixa super dilectum suum?” [“Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved.” Cant. 8:5] Seeing the impassioned gestures in the upper portions of the bodies might come as something of a surprise to any worshipper. But as the eye moves down the lovers’ bodies, his credulity will be even further stretched. Both of Christ’s bare feet are visible, resting on the mandorla’s lower bow. Mary positions the toe of one shod foot on the same support; her other foot hangs free above the hem Christ’s mantle. In looking for the anatomical place of this foot we discover the Virgin has placed her leg over the leg of her Son. This action, as commonly understood, is symbolic of sexual intercourse, not the first action one thinks of in this context. Knowing where to look enables us to find all the same motifs in Cimabue’s fresco. In recognizing this motif and its implications, we must ask: what it is doing here, in the heart of one of the most important churches of Christendom? We soon discover that the key to this astonishing image is the reference to the Song of Songs. We remember that The Canticle/Song of Songs/Song of Solomon is an Epithalámium, or nuptial song in honor of the bride and bridegroom at a public wedding, thought to have been written in the third century BCE. The poem describes the ardent terms in which a young man and

19 As the second antiphon of Lauds; see Corpus Antiphonalium Officii. 4 vols., ed. R.-J. Hesbert. Rome, 1963–75, #3574. This beautiful verse appears twice in the Cantico (2:6; 8:3).

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woman express their breathless, impatient desire for union. They praise each other’s bodies; they ruminate on love’s eternal bliss; they converse with their friends; and they prepare, quite voluptuously, for the consummation of their passion. This great lyric was considered so powerful and noble, it was presumed to have been of royal origin, and attributed to King Solomon himself. At the same time, its imagery was so graphic that, almost from the beginning, Rabbinical scholars cast the carnal desire in the poem as a divinely inspired allegory of Yahweh’s love for his Chosen People. In the Christian era, the love allegory played a crucial role with Christ, as established by St. Paul, identified as the sponsus or bridegroom.20 The one direct New Testament reference to the Canticle is found in the Gospel of John, when John the Baptist replies, “ego non sum Christus sed quia missus sum ante illum qui habet sponsam sponsus est amicus autem sponsi qui stat et audit eum gaudio gaudet propter vocem sponsi hoc ergo gaudium meum impletum est” [“I am not Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride, is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled.” John 3, 28–29]. The Baptist is thus the messenger who prepares the way for the so-called “Royal Wedding,” or as it is also called, the Mystic Marriage, and he proclaims the Song of Songs as the theme that fulfills the Old Dispensation in the New.21 The first full-scale Christian commentary on the poem was composed by Origen, the third-century Alexandrian Greek, who saw it as a drama, with Christ/Bridegroom, representing the Word of God; Ecclesia/Bride, representing the aggregate of souls; the Daughters of Zion/Friends and Attendants of the Bride, representing souls of believers; and Angels/Friends of the Bridegroom, representing the 20 Yehude Feliks, Song of Songs; Nature, Epic and Allegory ( Jerusalem, 1983). St. Paul, Letter to the Ephesians, 5:24–33. 21 The metaphor for the new character of the supreme being who loves and cherishes his creatures underlies all concepts of ideal Christian interpersonal relationships. One of the great well-springs of these ideas was St. Augustine’s De nuptiis et concupiscentia (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 42, eds. C.F. Urba and J. Zycha. [Vienna, 1902]), and De bono coniugali, in Sancti Aureli Augustini Opera (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, ed. J. Zycha. [Vienna, 1900], 41:187–231). Augustine is also the locus classicus for discussions of the marriage of Christ and Ecclesia, as well as for Christ in utero as the Infant Spouse in the bridal chamber of his mother’s womb; Sermons IX and X, in Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, trans. T.C. Lawler, Ancient Christian Writers 15 (Westminster, Md., 1952).

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guardians of souls before the coming of Christ. Origen’s analysis set the pattern of interpretation for the next ten centuries, using the poem to describe how Christ came to earth out of love, was joined to his Spouse in the “royal wedding” and expressed the godhead’s ardor and satisfaction with the decision to forgive humans’ sin through the sacrifice of redemption.22 The recipient of this divine affection was conceived as a corporate body identified by the feminine noun “ecclesia” (assembly). She was visualized as a stalwart female, as in a twelfth-century manuscript illumination, a commentary on the Song, as she takes marital possession of Christ.23 In an illustration to the Song itself, she is heroic in scale, and distinguished by a crenellated crown.24 As such, she represents the Church’s campaigns against paganism and heresy, and Christian strength in the face of the forces of evil. She is the “Church Militant” on earth to whom Christ gives his love and encouragement to fight on toward salvific triumph. The Song of Songs gained great prominence in the twelfth century when a veritable flood of commentaries issued forth from the monasteries of France and Germany. Exquisite exegeses were written by, among many other churchman, Rupert of Deutz, Honorius of Autun, Hugh of St. Victor, and above all Bernard of Clairvaux. The truly astonishing aspect of these writings was the heightened eroticism of their language, which openly paralleled spiritual adoration with sexual love-making. Honorius of Autun, for example, in describing the Song’s power to convey the whole of Salvation’s history, says it culminates in the supra-temporal Wedding Feast, related . . .” to five stages of sexual love: 1) Seeing the Beloved (God’s covenant with Abraham), 2) Speaking with her (God’s conversations through Moses and the Prophets), 3) Touching her (Christ’s Incarnation) 4) Kissing her (the gift of Peace given the disciples by the Risen Christ), and 5) having intercourse with her (perfect union enjoyed in heaven).”25 22 Anne E. Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990); see pp. 203–210 for a list of Latin commentaries through the twelfth century; 216–220 for a current bibliography. 23 Christ and Ecclesia, 1125–1150. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons, Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Lib. l, Serm. 32, fol. 2v., reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 34. 24 Christ and Ecclesia, 1143–1178. Frowin Bible. Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 4, Bd. 2, fol. 69v., reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 35. 25 J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina. 221 vols. Paris, 1844–77 vol. 172, cols. 350–51.

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Manuscripts of these commentaries, as well as biblical texts, were sometimes accompanied by illustrations showing Christ as the Infant in his mother’s arms. In a bible today in Lyons, France, the Madonna and Child, in poses of affection and warmth, are surrounded by what appears to be a circular frame.26 It is, in fact, the form of the initial letter of the first word of the first line of the Canticle: “osculetur me osculo oris sui quia meliora sunt ubera tua vino” [Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy breasts are better than wine. Cant. 1,1] In this tiny illustration, the child strides across the Virgin’s lap to place his cheek next to hers and align his lips with hers in the kiss. The vibrant quality of the Infant’s tunic adds to emotive tenor of the image. In another, slightly later bible in Madrid (Fig. 3), the enthroned Virgin holds a more mature Child who, as they stare into each other’s eyes, lays his hand over her upper breast. This gesture has a long history as signifying the taking of marital possession; and although the age differentiation is a major factor, as used here it clearly makes reference to the celestial sponsus/sponsa wedding meaning. Incidentally, in this form, the tradition was carried forward into Renaissance art, as seen in Donatello’s Pazzi relief,27 and remained one of the chief means of expression for the matrimonial relationship between the Virgin and Christ. In late medieval Canticle illustrations, however, just as frequently, the couple is adult. An early example portrays King Solomon himself embracing his beloved, the Daughter of Pharaoh (Fig. 4). As he touches her bare breast, she responds with a look of adoration. Soon the figures of the bride and bridegroom in the circular frame are Christianized with halos (Fig. 5), and are still seated together, kissing and holding each other with passion. In a mid twelfth-century example illuminating St. Jerome’s Commentary on the Song, they share a halo, now clearly marked with the Christological X. Moreover, perhaps, although it is difficult to judge, Christ places his leg over the leg of Mary his bride.28 These small scale, virtually hidden illu-

26 Mary and the Striding Christ Child, 1150–1200, Bible, Lyons, Bibliothèque de la Ville, MS 410–411, Bible I, fol. 207v.; reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 57. 27 Reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia Fig. 62. 28 Christ and Mary/Sponsa, ca. 1150. St. Jerome, Commentary on the Song of Songs, from Valenciennes, Abbaye de Saint-Amand. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1808, fol. 1v. Reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 38.

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minations, are new manifestations of the traditional marriage theme, and it is significant that they developed just as the churchmen were creating the first comprehensive interpretations of the Canticle in which the abstract notion of Ecclesia was wedded to the human sponsa of the Canticle and identified as the Virgin Mary. In these monastic commentaries, in fact, the Old Testament love poem was established as the primary vehicle for Catholic Marian ideology and devotion. The first monumental public version of the motif of Mary and the adult Christ seated amorously together is the stupendous mosaic in the apse of Santa Maria in Trastevere (Fig. 6).29 It was an official commission of Pope Innocent II about 1140–43.30 Here, a hypnotically powerful figure of Christ makes a bold gesture, astonishing in such a public place: he places his arm around Mary’s shoulder in the same warm embrace that refers directly to a line from the Song of Songs: “Laeva eius sub capite meo et dex(t)era illius amplexabit(ur) me”. The Canticle words are actually inscribed on the scroll Mary holds. There can be no mistaking the reference to the Assumption here, since Christ holds a copy of the Divine Office in the form of a codex inscribed with an antiphon written specifically for that feast: “Veni electa mea et ponam in te thronum meum” (Come my chosen one, I will put my throne in you).31

29 Our reproduction is a detail. For an image of the full apse, see the color reproduction in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 30. 30 William Tronzo. “Apse Decoration, the Liturgy and the Perception of Art in Medieval Rome: S. Maria in Trastevere and S. Maria Maggiore,” Italian Church Decoration of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: Functions, Forms and Regional Tradition. Ten Contributions to a Colloquium Held at the Villa Spelman, Florence, ed. William Tronzo, pp. 167–94. (Bologna 1989), with bibliography. 31 The Responsus continues: “For the king has desired your beauty” (Quia concupivit Rex speciem tuam; Ps. 44:12). It is listed in Corpus Antiphonalium 1970, 4:448, “Responsoria, Versus, Hymni et Varia”; #7826 and #7680 as used in the liturgy of the Assumption, the Common of Virgins (antiphon #5322), and several other feasts dedicated to female saints (e.g., Agnes, Lucy, Mary Magdalen). Although the precise origin of this phrase remains a mystery, it has been claimed by several modern authors that it is a paraphrase of Song 4:8 “Veni de Libano, sponsa mea, Veni de Libano, veni, coronaberis,” replacing the throne allusion with that of the Psalm’s crown, itself related to Psalm 44 (Paul Verdier. Le Couronnement de la Vierge: Les origines et les premiers dévelopments d’un thème iconographique [Montreal and Paris, 1980], pp. 95–99; Ernst Kitzinger, “A Virgin’s Face, Antiquarianism in TwelfthCentury Art.” Art Bulletin 62 (1980), 6–19.) or a transformation of passages in the writings of the Pseudo-Jerome that speaks of the throning of the Virgin (e.g., “it is believed that the Savior himself went to meet his mother joyfully and gladly placed her on a throne at his side,” [Patrologiae . . . Latina. 30, col. 138b]); quoted in

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This great papal monument, so startling in its fervent expression, was part of the extraordinary surge of interest in the symbolism of the Song of Songs just mentioned, and was surely the progenitor of many of the more explicit, and less public, examples in the manuscripts just mentioned. Another representation dating two decades after the mosaic, from the region of Hildesheim in Germany, today in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, does not illustrate the biblical poem, but is in a Missal accompanying the text of the mass of the Feast of the Assumption.32 The couple is not in a circle, but in a mandorla, that symbolic oval form that symbolizes elevated divine light. The Royal couple embraces passionately in a standing position; the male figure is identified as Christ with a crossed halo. In the borders of the page, angels, kings, prophets, and doctors of the church hold banderoles inscribed with other lines from the Song, also used in the liturgy.33 While Cimabue’s version incorporates many of the motifs in the manuscript tradition of a hundred years earlier, his life-size image is more overtly sexual than anything that came before. But this aspect of his fresco also relies on a tradition, fully developed by the early thirteenth century, in images illustrating virtuous marital intercourse. A pen and ink drawing in an Austrian model book dating from 1208–1213/18 (Fig. 7), shows a completely clothed man and woman seated together, embracing and fondling each other with devotion. Touching his wife’s chin in decorous familiarity, the husband crosses his right leg over his wife’s left thigh, thus alluding to the sexual act. The miniature includes offspring, an adolescent gesturing toward the parents while raising the head of a babe in a crib; it is an emblem

Golden Legend, 2:85. See also St. Bernard, in his first sermon on the Assumption; “And who is able ever even to conceive with what splendor the glorious Queen of the universe mounted heavenwards today; with what mighty ardor of tenderest affection the whole multitude of the heavenly legions issued forth to meet her.” See the appendix on this liturgical line in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, pp. 109–112. 32 Assumption of the Virgin with Christ, ca. 1160, signed, Presbyter Heinrich. Stammheimer Missal, fol. 145v. Santa Monica, California, J. Paul Getty Museum; color reproduction in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 32. 33 A similar illumination, from the same moment in time and the same geographical region, is in the Rattmann Missal (fol. 186v, Hildesheim, Domschatz, dated 1159, reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Fig. 33) where the sponsus holds the woman’s chin as their faces merge cheek to cheek. They are suspended above an open, empty sarcophagus in the foliate structure below, depicting Mary’s tomb and thus refer to the Assumption.

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of the relationship between physical and emotional intimacy and procreation in legitimate marriage.34 The motif of intertwined legs now became a symbol of licit love, which by the early thirteenth century had become a received convention. Thus by the time Cimabue transferred the figural symbol for virtuous physical love to Christ and Mary in his monumental scene, the meaning of the image was common knowledge. Although in modern times the intimacy of the embrace in Cimabue’s fresco has often been described, the particular leg gestures have not previously been observed. I suggest that this oversight is due to a famous early nineteenth-century copy of the fresco from which the suggestive motif was consciously expurgated. For his great publication on the history of Italian art (1825–1829), Seroux D’Agincourt commissioned a young Englishman, William Ottley, to make copies of the Cimabue frescoes (Fig. 8) personally guaranteeing them as faithful renderings.35 In spite of these assurances Mr. Ottley fastidiously omitted both Christ’s embracing left arm and the even more telltale lower portion of Mary’s left leg and foot. Her drapery quite irrationally comes to an abrupt horizontal edge at the knee. This expurgated version, in fact, provides further evidence of the sexual implications of the image. The intense passion of Cimabue’s image is related, moreover, to the fact that the metaphor of human sexuality played a major role in the theology of the Franciscans. In fact, St. Francis couched his own dedication to the virtue of poverty in terms of marital love in the allegorical tract called Sacrum commercium sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate, or “St. Francis’s Holy Intercourse with the Lady Poverty,”36 The classic illustration of this concept is the fresco representing the Wedding of Francis and Poverty, perhaps by the Maestro delle Vele, a

34 Robert W. Scheller. Exemplum: Model-book Drawing and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900–ca. 1470), trans. M. Hoyle. (Amsterdam, 1995), 149–54. 35 G.B.L.G. Seroux d’Agincourt. Storia dell’Arte, dimostrata coi monumenti dalla sua decadenza nel IV secolo fino al suo Risorgimento nel XVI. 6 vols. (Prato, 1826–29), 4:337. Our reproduction is a detail from this engraving. For the full view, see again Lavin and Lavin 1999, Fig. 27. 36 The text was edited by Stefano Brufani. Sacrum commercium sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate (Santa Maria degli Angeli, 1990). The most modern English translation is in Francis of Assisi: The Saint ed. Regis Armstrong, et al. New York: New City Press, 1999: 529–554.

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follower of Giotto, in one of the webs of the groin vault of the crossing of the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi. The scene follows an antique wedding formula as Francis places a ring on Poverty’s finger and Christ acts as the paranymphos. Bonaventure, too, was effusive in his development of the theme of love, particularly as verification of the doctrine of the Assumption in the flesh. The doctrine was a matter of considerable debate at this time, particularly between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The arguments Bonaventure presents in his sermons affirm that Mary, the bride of Christ, was taken up as an integral whole, a combination of soul and body; she was betrothed, and transferred to the heavenly bedchamber of the King. Bonaventure too wrote a commentary on the Canticle, and he describes how the soul prepares for spiritual elevation by devotion, admiration, and exultation, on the basis of passages from the Canticle. In his enthusiasm, he describes Christ’s passion in love as so rapturous that the soul dissolves in his amorous embrace. He defines the bond between mother and son, between husband and bride, between God and the worshipper, as infinitely sweet and infinitely desirable. And then, so that he is not misunderstood, he immediately reminds the worshipper that in this exercise one must root out love of creatures and turn one’s heart toward the Spouse himself. The gift of redemption will come (as Bonaventure promises) to all worshippers when they too have been “married to Christ with chaste love.”37 Thus was the way prepared for Cimabue’s image of a loving couple graciously ascending to heaven, accompanied, accepted, and assisted by a host of angels. Through this emotionally charged configuration he intermingles human sexuality with the divine gifts of spiritual love. The enhanced corporeality of his style makes it manifestly visible that Christ came to earth to fetch Mary; that she was assumed in the body, and that she was joined to her spouse in

37 Bonaventure Opus 9: 687–703; they are amply discussed by Belting, Die Oberkirche; see also Chiettini, La dottrina, p. 16. According to Hyacinth J.S. Ennis. Bonaventura (1274 –1974). (Rome, 1974), 4:129–45, Bonaventure saw the “real significance of the sacrament of matrimony from a double point of view of union in love. First, he regards it as a sign of the loving union between Christ and His Church. And secondly he sees in it a reflection of the union of the two natures, divine and human, in the person of the Christ. That is what marriage is all about: the loving union of two beings in one last union of love.”

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heavenly matrimony forever. Cimabue’s intensified verisimilitude shows the carnal love depicted as proof of spiritual miracles. Viewed in this light, the final composition in the sequence is as outstanding and unprecedented as the Assumption. It represents the third and fourth gifts to Maria-Ecclesia from Christ, combined in one image: 3) He enthrones her; and 4) He sits with her (Fig. 9). The emphasis of the cycle now shifts from declamations on the superior place of Mary in the Christian universe to her direct relationship with St. Francis and his followers. The divine couple is seated on a monumental, cloth-draped double throne atop a three-step platform. The motif, known as the Synthronos, this time places Mary on Christ’s right. This enthronement gift is a fulfillment of the prophecy written in Psalm 44:10: “filiae regum in honore tuo stetit coniux in dextera tua in diademate aureo [the Queen took her place at Your right hand in cloth of gold, with ornaments of great variety], again a line used in the liturgy of the Feast of the Assumption. Christ holds a book in his left hand, and blesses with his right, his arm outstretched toward the left at a low level. Looking at Him, Mary raises her left hand. Her gesture is directed toward a group of figures kneeling at the left, who from their equality of size, tonsures, and robes, can be identified as Friars Minor, most likely headed by St. Francis himself . To my knowledge, they are among the first human beings, not of royal blood or high social status, to be represented in the presence of holy personages in an extraterrestrial realm. Even more outstanding is the singularity of Mary’s direct intervention on their behalf, rarely if ever seen in art before this date. This intercessional “chain-of-command” from Christ to Mary, and from Mary to Francis is surely one of Cimabue’s most important innovations.38

Duccio’s tiny (23.5 × 16cm) votive painting in Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale, probably mid-1290s, is without doubt dependent on the Assisi fresco. It shows the Madonna and Child Enthroned with three Franciscan Friars (perhaps the “three companions,” Brothers Leo, Rufino, and Angelo), kneeling at their right, in progressive degrees of obeisance; see John White Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop. (New York, 1979), pp. 11–12, fig. 18. Interestingly enough, a similar motif appears contemporaneously in Byzantine art in the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Carmelites (after 1287), Byzantine Museum, Archbishop Makarios III Foundation, Nicosia, where Mary shelters ten Carmelite friars under her right arm. See Jaroslav Folda. “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus, c. 1275–1291: Reflections on the State of the Question,” Papers, International Conference “Cyprus and the Crusade.” (Nicosia, 1995), pp. 209–37, fig. 7. 38

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The hosts of heaven pressed tightly around the throne raise their hands as if to express amazement at this divine generosity. This astonishing image conveys an extraordinary statement: The divine gift is now transmitted through Mary to St. Francis and his brothers who are granted a special mission as interlocutors between humankind and God. Mary speaks on behalf of the friars directly to Christ, whose throne she shares, as Christ offers his blessing. As if to verify the assignment, Francis brings his love for humankind to Mary, and her love is transported back through him and his followers. And Christ, embracing Mary physically and placing her on his throne at his right, extends the gift of his love through her to Francis, and through Francis to the body of the Church. Finally, these ideas should be seen in their historical context. Among the emerging factions in the order, Bonaventure kept peace by re-organizing the statutes, including those for buildings, following the strict rule of simplicity on paper while accepting, even seeking, support for the grandiose Assisi project from the Roman curia.39 The planning involved many personalities and some basic Church politics. Defined by the crusader pope, Gregory X, and continuing through the builder pope, Nicholas III, the concerns were quite clear: re-unification of the Western and Eastern Churches (discussed in the Council of Lyon, 1274), reconquest of Jerusalem (by renewing the crusades) and a major campaign to convert Jews and Muslims. The papal strategy in this new offensive was to employ the Franciscans as ground troops operating with their revolutionary new tactic, preaching directly to the people. To verify the Order’s position in this Christian universe, the impressively vaulted basilica with its unified painted program would be the flagship of this operation. Hence the insistent papal support and encouragement for the Assisi project.40 The love story of Christ and Mary in Cimabue’s frescoes seen in this light puts into perspective the theological foundation for the basilica’s overall program, in itself one of the great innovations of the project. In eight scenes, Cimabue combined narrative, poetry, theology, and polemics to create an inaugural statement of Franciscan policy. His emotionally strong style and resolute iconography gave 39

George Marcil ed., The Works of Saint Bonaventure: Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order, intro. and trans. Dominic Monti (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1994), “The Constitutions of Narbonne” (1260), 5: 85, 86. 40 Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, pp. 78–85 follows this history.

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expression to the content of the cycle: God-given legitimacy of mendicant preaching and the apostolate of the Friars Minor as saviors of souls. Moreover, Cimabue’s sequence should be recognized as the main cog in a wheel of contemporary papal theo-political engagement. The over-arching plan was to conquer the world with Roman dogma, and, for this time, the agents were to be the “evangelical and authentic” Franciscans. As the Marian cycle reveals, the friars’ mandate was to preach the promise of salvation under the protection of the Virgin. As if to survey the geography of the Church Militant’s heavensent mission, the battle plan is laid out in the remarkable urban images that accompany the evangelists on the webs of the four-part crossing vault at the apex above the entrance to the apse.41 On the south web with St. Mark is a view of Rome, inscribed “Ytalia”; in the west web with St. Luke is a view of Constantinople, inscribed “Hellas” in Greek; in the east web with St. Matthew is a view of Jerusalem, inscribed “Judea”; and in the north web with St. John is a view of Ephesus(?), inscribed “Asia,” gateway to the East. The four regions of the world named on the vault effectively outline the papal plan for proselytizing: The launching site is Rome (Ytalia), where the reigning pope/senator Nicholas III, shows his political as well as his religious ambitions by placing his mark on the seat of Roman government: the Orsini escutcheon appears on the Capitoline affixed to the Palazzo del Senatori.42 The first crusading move toward the Byzantines was taken in Lyons in 1274, and so the image of Constantinople is shown. Judea can only refer to the designs to reconquer the Holy Land, home of the Jews; and the final move would be to Asia where, in an ideal world, the Muslims would convert. A key to the inspiration for this grandiose program is provided by the geographical scheme of the vault and the reference to Nicholas 41 The frescoes on this vault are reproduced in Lavin and Lavin, Liturgia, Figs. 40 and 41. It was the web of St. Matthew that was destroyed in the earthquake of 1997; cf. Giorgio Bonsanti. La volta della Basilica superiore di Assisi (Modena, 1997), pp. 72–77. Reconstruction and restoration was completed by 2000. 42 Belting, Die Oberkirche, pp. 68, 89–91 and pl. II; Biet Brenk, “Zu den Gewölbefresken der Oberkirche in Assisi,” in Roma anno 1300, Atti della IV settimana di studi di storia dell’arte medievale dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza” (19–24 May 1980), ed. Anna Maria Romanini (Rome, 1983), pp. 221–28; also Maria Andaloro. “Ancora una volta sull’Ytalia di Cimabue.” Arte Medievale 2 (1984),143–77, who analyzes the topographical detail and speaks of Cimabue’s “new realism” in recording the Roman monuments.

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III’s Romanitas that appears in the south or “Italian” web that holds the figures of St. Mark. This Evangelist ends his gospel with the passage on the Risen Christ’s prophylactic promise to his followers: “et dixit eis euntes in mundum universum praedicate evangelium omni creaturae qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit salvus erit qui vero non crediderit condemnabitur signa autem eos qui crediderint haec sequentur in nomine meo daemonia eicient linguis loquentur novis serpentes tollent et si mortiferum quid biberint non eos nocebit super aegrotos manus inponent et bene habebunt et Dominus quidem postquam locutus est eis adsumptus est in caelum et sedit a dextris Dei illi autem profecti praedicaverunt ubique Domino cooperante et sermonem confirmante sequentibus signis” [And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover. And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God. But they going forth preached every where: the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed. Mark 16:15–20]. Through this reference, the Franciscan brothers are officially given the gift of preaching in the manner of the apostles, and sent out from the heart of San Francesco in Assisi, the heart of Rome, and the heart of the Church, caput orbis et urbis, prima parens, mater, caput ecclesiarum.

THE DATE OF THE ST FRANCIS CYCLE IN THE UPPER CHURCH OF S. FRANCESCO AT ASSISI: THE EVIDENCE OF COPIES AND CONSIDERATIONS OF METHOD1 Thomas de Wesselow

So much has been written about the frescoes at Assisi that it seems to be almost foolhardy to suggest that something may have been overlooked John White, 1956

The fresco cycle of the life of St Francis painted in the Upper Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, may safely be claimed to be the most important visual statement of Franciscan hagiography. Not only is it located in the nave of the mother church of the Franciscan Order, thus guaranteeing it a privileged official status, but it is also the grandest and most extensive narrative cycle of its kind. Moreover, the individual scenes provided influential models for later portrayals of the saint’s life and miracles, so that they helped condition to a large extent the popular Italian conception of St Francis. Yet the St Francis Cycle is itself a conundrum, being at the centre of one of the most intractable ‘problems’ in art history—the so-called ‘Assisi Problem.’ Essentially, this concerns the interconnected issues of the date and authorship of the paintings—including many of the frescoes of Old and New Testament scenes on the walls above the St Francis Cycle— with the dispute centring on the participation (if any) of Giotto in

1

The research upon which this study is based was undertaken primarily during scholarships held at the British School at Rome and at the Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia dell’Arte in Florence and during a post-doctoral research post at King’s College, Cambridge. I would like to thank these institutions for their generous support. I would also like to thank Joanna Cannon, Paul Binski, William Cook, Rosalind Brooke, Donal Cooper and Virginia Brilliant for their help and advice at various stages and for reading and commenting upon earlier drafts. The seeds of the current study were sown during an undergraduate course at the University of Edinburgh given by Roger Tarr, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for engaging my enthusiasm and for guiding my initial forays into this fraught area of debate.

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the programme of decoration.2 But the problem is not confined solely to difficulties regarding the frescoes in the Upper Church, complex as these are in themselves; it also necessarily concerns a great many other works more or less closely related to the great artistic events in Assisi. As John White has said, ‘The historical pattern and the very nature of the development of late-thirteenth-century Italian painting, and of the careers and personalities of artists of the highest rank, hang on the answer that is given.’3 Needless to say, the confusion also inhibits proper historical investigation of the frescoes: where contextual frameworks are currently adduced for the St Francis Cycle, they generally support or challenge one or another attributional account, thus implicating themselves in the narrower controversy. Unless the problem is resolved by other means, the most important painted cycle of St Francis’ life may never be convincingly accounted for in holistic terms. It is particularly unfortunate that the art historical dispute has developed along nationalistic lines, reflecting and perpetuating different scholarly traditions. Italian scholars, almost without exception, count themselves as integrazionisti, upholding the traditional attribution of

2 Doubts about the Giotto attribution were expressed in the early nineteenth century by: K. Witte, “Der Sacro Convento in Assisi,” Kunst-Blatt (1821), 166–67; and Carl Friedrich von Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen, 2 (Berlin, 1827), pp. 65–68. At the beginning of the next century these were taken up by: Franz Wickhoff, “Review of A. Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana. V. La pittura del Trecento e le sue origine, (Milan, 1907),” Kunstgeschichtlich Anzeigen 4 (1907), 43–47; Andreas Aubert, Die malerische Dekoration der San Francesco Kirche in Assisi. Ein Beitrag zur Lösung der Cimabue Frage (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 75–78; and, most significantly, Friedrich Rintelen, Giotto und die Giotto-Apokryphen (Munich, 1912), pp. 177–210. The denial of Giotto’s authorship of the cycle has since been maintained by, among others: Osvald Sirén, Giotto and some of his followers (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1917), pp. 8–20; Richard Offner, “Giotto, Non-Giotto,” Burlington Magazine 74 (1939), 259–68 and Burlington Magazine 75 (1939), 96–113; Millard Meiss, Giotto and Assisi (New York, 1960); John White, Art and Architecture in Italy 1250–1400, 3rd ed. (London, 1993), pp. 344–48; Alastair Smart, The Assisi Problem and the art of Giotto (Oxford, 1971); James Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art (New York, 1985); and Hayden Maginnis, Painting in the age of Giotto (Pennsylvania, 1997), pp. 79–125. Influential proponents of the traditional attribution of the cycle to Giotto include: Roberto Longhi, “Giudizio sul Duecento,” Proporzioni 2 (1948), 5–54, pp. 49–51; Cesare Gnudi, Giotto (Milan, 1958), pp. 35–98, 235–40; Pietro Toesca, Storia dell’arte italiana II. Il Trecento (Turin, 1964), pp. 451–68; Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan, 1967), pp. 36–54; Robert Oertel, Early Italian painting to 1400, trans. Lily Cooper (London, 1968), pp. 65–78; Luciano Bellosi, La pecora di Giotto (Turin, 1985), pp. 41–102; Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto (Milan, 1995), pp. 32–86. 3 White, Art and architecture, p. 348.

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the St Francis Cycle to Giotto; while the doubters, or separatisti, who deny that Giotto was involved in the project, are to be found almost exclusively among the ‘Anglo-Saxons,’ though in recent times they have tended less often to be ‘Saxon’ than ‘Anglo.’4 As Hayden Maginnis has said, ‘perhaps no other debate has so often appeared to represent a fundamental divide between the Italian and the AngloGermanic traditions and methods of art-historical scholarship.’5 The divide, at present, might appear to be unbridgeable. Nevertheless, the two camps share at least one important assumption, and it will be one of the eventual aims of this article to show that, if this outdated premise is abandoned, they are, to a degree, reconcilable. At present, there is a marked difference in the combative spirit of the two sides. While the integrazionisti frequently reassert their beliefs in any number of publications on Giotto,6 the heirs of the separatisti now tend to evade full discussion of the issue, dissenting firmly but quietly.7 As a result, the tide of opinion has seemed for a while, superficially at least, to be turning in favour of those who uphold the traditional view, but two recent events have somewhat stemmed

4 The term separatisti was coined by Bellosi, by analogy with the Homeric dispute (see Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 41–48). Bellosi notes that Offner’s 1939 article, “Giotto, non-Giotto,” established the separatist paradigm among English-speaking scholars, while Oertel’s 1953 book, Die Frühzeit der italienischen Malerei (translated into English as Early Italian painting to 1400) encouraged German scholars to accept, once again, the traditional attribution to Giotto (Bellosi, Pecora, p. 44). 5 Maginnis, Painting in the age of Giotto, p. 79. Cf. Bellosi, Pecora, p. 41: ‘Coloro che sono rimasti fedeli all’idea giottesca hanno quasi sempre evitato un confronto sistematico con i separatisti, sicché si sono formati come due circoli chiusi, che hanno dialogato all’interno di se stessi . . .’ 6 See, for instance, recently: d’Arcais, Giotto; Giuseppe Basile, Giotto: le storie francescane (Milan, 1996); Alessandro Tomei, Giotto (Art dossier) (Florence, 1998); and Angelo Tartuferi, Giotto: guida alla mostra / guide to the exhibition (Florence, 2000). 7 For example, Maginnis’ ruminative reassessment of the period rehearses the stylistic arguments against Giotto’s authorship, which the author finds compelling, but sees no profit in discussing the dating arguments (see Maginnis, Painting in the Age of Giotto, pp. 79–125). Similarly, Andrew Ladis, ed., Giotto and the world of early Italian art, 4. Franciscanism, the papacy and art in the age of Giotto: Assisi and Rome (New York, 1998), contains a selection of essays heavily weighted in favour of a separatist interpretation, but, due to the nature of the series, no new material. The current mood of the separatisti is well caught in Ladis’ remark in the introduction to this volume that the ‘Assisi Problem,’ ‘remains a hotly debated and far from resolved question . . .’ (n.p.). Compare this with the impatient tone of Tartuferi, not uncharacteristic of the present integrazionisti: ‘It seems almost superfluous to point out that this undeniable link with the Assisi frescoes [Giotto’s Louvre ‘Stigmatisation’] is an unquestionable confirmation of Giotto’s authorship’ (Tartuferi, Giotto, p. 16).

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their advance. First of all, there has been a defection within their own ranks, signalled initially by the publication in 1996 of Il Cantiere di Giotto, containing Bruno Zanardi’s authoritative technical report on the frescoes and a provocative introduction by Federico Zeri, in which the names of Pietro Cavallini and Filippo Rusuti are aired as potential authors of the work.8 (Zanardi himself has subsequently argued the case for Cavallini.)9 And secondly, during 2000 there were discovered fresco fragments reminiscent of the Assisi frescoes in Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, fragments which were immediately associated with Cavallini and his recorded work in the Roman basilica.10 News of this important discovery broke just as a major exhibition concerning Giotto held at the Accademia in Florence was drawing to a close, an exhibition that attempted, once more, to put a unilateral stamp of authority on the integrationist view of the artist.11 All this has once again brought the ‘Assisi Problem’ to the fore. It is now the best part of two centuries since the trouble began, although only a mere ninety years since battle commenced in earnest.12 In that time, essentially three major theories have been advanced in order to account for the St Francis Cycle. The followers of Vasari, the perennial majority, contend that the frescoes are Giotto’s initial masterpiece, the very work in which he made a decisive break with the Byzantinizing style of the past.13 For others, most notably those 8 Bruno Zanardi, Federico Zeri and Chiara Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto: le storie di San Francesco ad Assisi (Milan, 1996). In the associated press briefings, Zanardi and Zeri repeated their claims (see, for instance, Alasdair Palmer, “The Truth about Giotto,” The Sunday Telegraph (Review Section), 3 August 1997, p. 9). That Cavallini might have been involved in the painting of the St Francis Cycle has also been proposed by Alessandro Parronchi, who identifies him with the so-called St Cecilia Master (see Alessandro Parronchi, Cavallini, ‘discepolo di Giotto’ (Florence, 1994)). 9 Bruno Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini: la questione di Assisi e il cantiere medievale della pittura a fresco (Milan, 2002). 10 These uncovered frescoes are still not published, but see ibid., pp. 260–63, for a brief consideration. For Cavallini’s activity in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, see: Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori (1568), ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 1 (Florence, 1878), p. 539; Paul Hetherington, Pietro Cavallini. A study in the art of late medieval Rome (London, 1979), pp. 121–2; and Alessandro Tomei, Pietro Cavallini (Milan, 2000), pp. 106–119. 11 See Angelo Tartuferi, ed., Giotto: bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, exh. cat. (Florence, 2000). 12 Although Witte voiced the first doubts in 1821, it was not until Rintelen’s 1912 book that the issue became a cause célèbre. 13 Of course, the immediately preceding works associated with the so-called Isaac Master, considered by many to be Giotto himself, are also included in this narrative. The extensive use of workshop assistance is now generally assumed.


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who first formulated the separatist paradigm, they are derivative works executed by unidentified followers of Giotto in the early to mid-fourteenth century.14 For others still, the current separatist majority, they are the work of great, anonymous pioneers, working in the late Duecento or very early Trecento, whose relation to Giotto seems destined to remain forever uncertain. Each of these interpretations, and their several variations, implies a rather different pattern of development for the emergent Renaissance style. The debate is, by now, extraordinarily complex, and it is more than a little difficult, as the old saying goes, to see the wood for the trees. Involving, as it does so many contradictory indications, contingent arguments and provisional hypotheses, the subject can seem utterly impenetrable. How, then, should we proceed? John White may serve as an initial guide. Though he favours a separatist explanation, he presents a relatively balanced overview of the conflicting arguments, opening his analysis of the problem with the following pertinent observation: ‘The first of the interlocking questions involved in any reasoned attack on the problem of whether or not Giotto is one and the same as the Isaac Master, or the master of the St Francis Cycle, or both, is that of the date of the Legend of St Francis at Assisi.’15 There can be no doubt that this is correct. In the past, the cycle has been placed anywhere between c. 1290 and c. 1350.16 It is impossible, obviously, to assess the significance of the frescoes from a stylistic or historical point-of-view when the dates accorded them vary over more than half a century. Ascertaining the correct date would allow us to embark upon a proper evaluation of their cultural and historical significance. Crucially, it would provide the necessary basis for an authoritative discussion of the cycle’s relation to the art of Giotto.

14

See Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen; Wickhoff, “Review;” and Rintelen, Giotto. Recently, only Stubblebine has argued for this interpretation (see Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art). 15 White, Art and Architecture, p. 344. 16 These extremes are represented respectively by Peter Murray, “Notes on some early Giotto sources,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953), 58–80, pp. 71–74 (followed, most notably, by Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 3–40); and by Wickhoff, “Review.” None now accept Wickhoff ’s claim (his lead was followed only in Julius von Schlosser, Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwurdigkeiten, 2 (Berlin, 1912), pp. 115–16), though relatively recently Stubblebine has argued that the cycle should be dated ‘to the end of the 1320s or the early part of the 1330s’ (Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art, p. 107).

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Much effort has been expended in the past in an effort to calculate the works’ chronology, and a great many different arguments have been brought into play. The variety of approaches is healthy, but it is also bewildering. How is one to judge between different types of argument that seemingly contradict one another? How to weigh a stylistic argument in the balance with considerations of historical likelihood? How to set information derived from written sources against iconographic arguments or those derived from a study of fashion? And so on. Deciding such questions is ultimately a matter of personal preference and training. However, there is one universal principle, familiar in a legal context, that may help in ordering the material: circumstantial arguments, however suggestive, should be treated with caution and subordinated to direct evidence intrinsically related to the case. This principle allows a threefold system to be developed for the investigation of the cycle’s chronology, a system that determines the form of this study. First of all, I shall make a survey of all those arguments previously adduced, assessing their merits and distinguishing those that offer only circumstantial evidence from those that provide direct chronological indications. Secondly, I shall attempt to establish a significant new terminus post quem via a detailed analysis of the formation and dispersal of certain workshop designs—a particularly useful type of direct evidence. Thirdly, having attempted to determine the time-frame within which the frescoes must have been painted, I shall return to the circumstantial arguments previously discussed and consider them in the light of this new evidence.17 Since the issue of the cycle’s date cannot ultimately be divorced from that of its authorship, I shall here briefly hint at an alternative scenario regarding the frescoes’ production—one that has the potential, I believe, to accommodate many of the most salient arguments made on either side. Finally, in order to situate my account within a minimal historical framework, I shall conclude with a brief discussion of the St Francis Cycle’s relation to the decorative scheme of the Upper Church as a whole. 17 I have used a comparable approach in analysing the somewhat similar problem presented by the ‘Guidoriccio fresco’ in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena (see T. de Wesselow, The wall of the Mappamondo: the Trecento decoration of the west wall of the Sala del Mappamondo in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, PhD thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2000, pp. 80–98). I hope to publish this research in due course.

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Appraising the Existing Arguments

Assorted evidence

The evidence for the frescoes’ date that has been adduced in the past falls into a number of distinct categories, including those of attribution, patronage, style, fashion, iconography and copying. Few of these offer any conclusive evidence, as the current impasse confirms. Nevertheless, it is essential to a clear understanding of the issues involved that the most significant of these be evaluated together at the outset. The most obvious argument, of course, derives from the attribution of the cycle to Giotto. All its advocates currently agree that this necessitates a dating of the cycle before 1303–5, the date of the Arena Chapel, which they interpret as the work of the same artist in a more mature phase.18 Following an indication of Vasari’s, it has generally been assumed that the frescoes must have been painted sometime after 1296, when Fra Giovanni da Murro became Minister General of the Order.19 Recently, however, an increasing unease with the manifest divergences between the Assisi frescoes and those in the Arena Chapel has encouraged the view among many integrazionisti that the St Francis Cycle is earlier than this, allowing more time for the stylistic gap to be bridged. This is made clear by Bellosi in his vigorous reformulation of the traditional account: ‘If, instead, the Assisi frescoes are referable to the beginning of the 1290s, we can reckon on more than ten years for an evolution of Giotto’s style from Assisi to Padua.’20 Although he discusses the frescoes’ dating first, there is a strong suspicion that his faith in the traditional attribution to Giotto provides the essential stimulus for his chronological arguments—and a chronology based on a preconceived attribution

18 The one exception appears to be Supino, who gives them to Giotto c. 1306–10 (see I. B. Supino, Giotto, 1 (Florence, 1920), pp. 169, 315). On the evidence for dating the Arena Chapel, see below, note 123. 19 For Vasari’s statement regarding Fra Giovanni da Murro, see below, note 29. 20 ‘Se invece gli affreschi di Assisi sono riferibili agli inizi degli anni novanta del Duecento, possiamo contare su più di dieci anni per una evoluzione dei modi di Giotto da Assisi a Padova’ (Bellosi, Pecora, p. 42). This rationale is also explicitly stated by Murray, “Notes,” p. 74: ‘If it is impossible to date the Arena Chapel immediately after Assisi, it may not be so difficult to accept one as the work of a man about twenty-five and the other as that of a man of about thirty-eight to forty.’

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to Giotto merely helps reconfirm its own premise. Let it be said immediately that there are some very good arguments in favour of the attribution to Giotto (in part, at least), but his authorship is not provable, obviously, and thus cannot be taken into primary consideration. In one case, at least, the circularity of the attributional argument is readily apparent: ascribing the Lateran loggia fresco of Boniface VIII to Giotto at a more advanced stage than the Assisi frescoes, certain authors adduce its likely date of execution, c. 1297, as a terminus ante quem for the St Francis Cycle, thereby reinforcing the notion of an early date for the latter and assisting its attribution to Giotto, the very attribution upon which that of the Lateran fresco depends.21 This clearly demonstrates the danger of a precipitous attribution.22 The desire for an early date finds fuel in a circumstantial historical argument first proposed by Murray.23 Between 1288 and 1292, the head of the Catholic Church was, for the first time, a Franciscan, Nicholas IV, a great patron of art and a man thoroughly concerned with the mother house at Assisi. It has been argued, therefore, that he was responsible for commissioning the St Francis Cycle.24 In the past, this argument has been founded upon a Bull he issued in 1288, which concerns the need, among other things, to ornament the church.25 But recently, Donal Cooper and Janet Robson have pre-

21 See d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 33; and Oertel, Early Italian painting, p. 78. On the dating of the Lateran fresco, see: Silvia Maddalo, “Bonifacio VIII e Jacopo Stefaneschi: ipotesi di lettura dell’affresco della loggia lateranese,” Studi Romani 31 (1983), 129–50. 22 Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art, p. 16, is justified in saying that, ‘For many, Giotto’s authorship of the Assisi frescoes is the foundation on which every argument about the cycle is based.’ 23 Murray, “Notes,” pp. 70–4. 24 This idea is entertained, for instance, by Murray, “Notes,” pp. 72–4; Charles Mitchell, “The imagery of the Upper Church at Assisi,” in Giotto e il suo tempo: atti del congresso internazionale per la celebrazione del VII centenario della nascita di Giotto, 24 settembre—1 ottobre 1967 (Rome, 1971), pp. 113–134, at p. 130; Dieter Blume, Wandmalerei als Ordenspropaganda. Bildprogramme im Chorbereich franziskanischer Konvente Italiens bis zur Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts (Worms, 1983), p. 37; Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 35–7; and William Cook, “The cycle of the life of St Francis of Assisi in Rieti: the first ‘copy’ of the Assisi frescoes,” Collectanea franciscana 65 (1995), 115–47, p. 121. 25 See, for instance, Murray, “Notes,” p. 70, who calls this Bull, ‘the only reasonable answer to the question of payment for the St Francis cycle.’ Miklós Boskovits, “Celebrazione dell’VIII centenario della nascita di San Francesco: studi recenti sulla Basilica di Assisi,” Arte Cristiana 71 (1983), 203–214, p. 209, however, points to the 1296 Bulls of Boniface VIII, which would thereafter have ensured ample funds from indulgences for the decoration of the church.


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sented new evidence that apparently associates Nicholas unequivocally with the creation of certain unspecified ‘pictures’ in the Assisi basilica.26 A polemical Franciscan tract of 1311–12, Religiosi viri, states that Nicholas IV ‘ordered to be made’ (‘fieri precepit’) certain pictures in the church, which combined to produce an effect of ‘great sumptuousness’ (‘sumptuositatem magnam’).27 The reference is tantalising, and Cooper and Robson connect it tentatively with the execution of the St Francis Cycle itself.28 However, the document does not specify exactly which paintings Nicholas is meant to have commissioned, nor does it circumscribe the work chronologically: crucially, it does not tell us at what date the Nicholine programme was completed, or even (it should be noted) whether it was complete by the time of writing. I shall return to this evidence in my conclusion, but for the moment it must be set aside as a further circumstantial argument, to be assessed in the light of direct evidence. Vasari’s statement that Giotto was called to Assisi in the time of Fra Giovanni da Murro has been taken by some as confirming that the St Francis Cycle was executed between 1296 and 1304.29 It is tempting to take this evidence at face value, since Vasari seems to have gleaned the information in Assisi itself, either from some nowlost document or source or from a local oral tradition. But there is always the possibility that Vasari’s source was mistaken, or that he misinterpreted it, or that he deduced the idea incorrectly for himself.30 In the end, Fra Giovanni da Murro is no more likely to have

26 See Donal Cooper and Janet Robson, “Pope Nicholas IV and the Upper Church at Assisi,” Apollo 157 (2003), 31–35. 27 For this document, see below, p. 160 and note 144. 28 Cooper and Robson, “Pope Nicholas IV,” pp. 33–34. See below, note 146. 29 Vasari, Le vite, 1, p. 377: ‘Finite queste cose [at Arezzo], si condusse in Ascesi, città dell’Umbria, essendovi chiamato da Fra Giovanni da Murro della Marca, allora generale de’ Frati di San Francesco . . .’ Credence has been given to Vasari’s statement by, among others, Toesca, Il Trecento, p. 453, note 8; Oertel, Early italian painting, p. 68; Previtali, Giotto, pp. 46–7; and Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” pp. 207–9. N.B. Although Giovanni da Murro had to resign as Minister General in 1302, due to his attainment of the cardinalship, he remained as Vicar of the Order until the Assisi chapter of 1304, when Gonsalvo da Valboa was appointed as his successor. 30 Murray, “Notes,” p. 70, is extremely sceptical of Vasari’s information, arguing that the sixteenth-century writer could have deduced the idea for himself. However, two factors tend give some measure of credence to Vasari’s statement: a) it seems far-fetched to suppose that Vasari felt he ‘needed a major patron’ (ibid., p. 70) for the work, since Vasari’s interest in patronage c. 1300 was minimal, and he feels no obligation to supply—or invent—any such information in the first edition; b) the second edition, in which the passage appears, was written after Vasari

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instigated the creation of the St Francis Cycle than Nicholas IV. Consideration of this argument, too, will have to be postponed. Then there is the general criterion of style. The St Francis Cycle can be linked stylistically to a number of securely dated works in the period around 1300, such as the frescoes in the Sala dei Notari in the Palazzo dei Priori of Perugia, datable c. 1299;31 the 1307 St Peter Enthroned, now in the Florentine church of S. Simone;32 the altarpiece of the same year by Giuliano da Rimini, now in the Gardner Museum, Boston;33 and the Lateran loggia fresco of Boniface VIII, datable c. 1297.34 Recognition of the similarities with these works helps anchor the cycle to the same general period c. 1300, and this provides a strong initial reason to doubt the idea that it is the work of Giottesque masters of the mid-fourteenth century. However, the chronological ‘drift’ allowed by this type of argument may be considerable. It might be thought unlikely that the frescoes were produced much more than a decade either side of 1300, but any precise limit set will be arbitrary, and there is always the possibility that an archaic provincial manner endured for decades. Still in the realm of general considerations, Bellosi has sought to derive evidence from the fashions worn by the figures in the frescoes.35 Shifts in fashion, like general stylistic trends in art (of which, for our purposes, they may be said to be a part, since the evidence

had paid another visit to Assisi in 1563, where he would certainly have made enquiries about the work. I am inclined to agree with Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” p. 208, when he says, ‘non si capisce perchè l’Aretino avrebbe inventato di sana pianta una storia del genere.’ 31 On the dating of these frescoes, now see Pietro Scarpellini, “Osservazione sulla decorazione pittorica della Sala dei Notari,” in Francesco Mancini, ed., Il Palazzo dei Priori di Perugia (Perugia, 1997), 211–33, at pp. 214–16. 32 For this panel, see: Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Section 3, the fourteenth century, ed. M. Boskovits, 1 (Florence, 1986), pp. 114–21; and Monica Bietti Favi, “Gaddo Gaddi: un’ipotesi,” Arte Cristiana 71 (1983), 49–52. I am unconvinced by Favi’s identification of Gaddo Gaddi as author of this work. 33 On this panel, see below, pp. 128–29 and note 56. 34 On this fresco, see note 21 above. 35 Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 11–14. Bellosi has been foremost in promoting the study of fashion as a guide to chronology (see: L. Bellosi, Buffalmacco: il Trionfo della Morte (Turin, 1974), pp. XXII–XXIII, 41–54; idem, “Moda e cronologia. A) La decorazione della basilica inferiore di Assisi,” Prospettiva 10 (1977), 21–31; idem, “Moda e cronologia. B) Per la pittura di primo Trecento,” Prospettiva 11 (1977), 12–27; idem, “‘Castrum pingatur in palatio’ 2. Duccio e Simone Martini, pittori dei castelli senese ‘a l’esemplo come erano,’” Prospettiva 28 (1982), 41–65, pp. 49–50).


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for them is almost entirely figurative), undoubtedly have a rôle to play in evaluating a painting’s date, as Bellosi has argued, but, in this period, at least, the method is far less precise than he claims.36 The surviving visual record is so fragmentary that it can barely sustain the task, and those works that do survive provide ambiguous evidence. Take the issue of men’s hairstyles: Bellosi sees a clear progression from the 1283 panel in Santa Chiara, Assisi, which shows the men with long untidy hair, to the Arena Chapel, which, he says, shows them neatly coiffured. The St Francis Cycle, in his opinion, falls between the two, resembling more closely the Santa Chiara panel.37 Leaving aside the difficulty of comparing the representation of antique and modern stories, Bellosi’s observations are highly selective, and are therefore questionable. In fact, there are plenty of tumbling locks in the Arena Chapel (e.g., in Fig. 3), while neat curls appear to be de rigueur in the Assisi frescoes (e.g., in Fig. 6). Evidently, fashions in hairstyles as well as clothes did not progress altogether neatly, and paintings of the time probably reflect this fact. Any slight statistical differences may be attributable to local preferences or to the representational habits and aims of the artists. It is premature to plot them on a neat chronological scale. Turning to facial hair, Bellosi develops an iconographic argument regarding the beard of St Francis. From a brief analysis of contemporary attitudes towards beards, he concludes that certain images of a clean-shaven St Francis emanating around the turn of the century from Rome, Florence and Assisi should be understood as a concerted effort on the part of Conventuals to ‘civilise’ the saint and thus as clear anti-Spiritual propaganda.38 Since the Assisi cycle shows St Francis with a beard, Bellosi derives the conclusion that it dates

36

For criticism of Bellosi’s use of this type of evidence with regard to the ‘Guidoriccio,’ see: Andrew Martindale, “The Problem of Guidoriccio,” Burlington Magazine 128 (1986), 259–73, p. 270, note 77; and de Wesselow, The wall of the Mappamondo, pp. 231–32. Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” p. 208, puts little store by the arguments from fashion that Bellosi adduces in relation to the St Francis Cycle: ‘Ancora minore sicurezza offrono per una datazione ad annum le pur puntuali osservazione del Bellosi sull’emergere e sullo scomparire di certi fenomeni della moda nel corso dell’ultimo decennio del secolo.’ 37 See Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 11–14. 38 Ibid., pp. 3–9, esp. p. 6: ‘Il san Francesco senza la barba si pone, perciò, come un’imagine intenzionale, pregna di una forte carica ideologica, in polemica con gli spirituali e simbolo del francescanismo moderato degli conventuali.’

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from before 1296, the date he sets for the start of the supposed campaign.39 But the evidence is, once again, self-contradictory. If the beardless St Francis is an anti-Spiritual sign, why is he represented thus above the tomb of Gian Gaetano Orsini in the St Nicholas chapel in the Lower Church, which was patronised by Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, one of the strongest supporters of the Spirituals and the protector of Ubertino da Casale? What of the fact that St Anthony of Padua is shown beardless in Scene 18 of the St Francis Cycle, ‘The Apparition at Arles,’ an iconographic development that Bellosi himself situates in the early fourteenth century?40 It can be demonstrated, in any case, that St Francis continued to be represented throughout the period in Florence and elsewhere both with a beard and, simultaneously, with sandals, a fairly clear sign of Conventual allegiance: witness his depiction in the Madonna and Child in the Finlay Collection, attributable to the Master of the Horne Triptych;41 or the hirsute stigmatic in Giuliano da Rimini’s 1307 altarpiece, to be discussed below. The saint’s beard in these instances can have borne no Spiritual message. Ferdinando Bologna has criticised Bellosi’s argument thus: ‘There must clearly have been some criterion for representing St Francis with or without a beard; but it is equally clear that we will have to look for it elsewhere than

39 This date is derived from that of Jacopo Torriti’s mosaic in the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, for which, see: H. Henkels, “Remarks on the late thirteenth-century apse decoration in S. Maria Maggiore,” Simiolus 4 (1971), 128–49, p. 130; Julian Gardner, “Pope Nicholas IV and the decoration of Santa Maria Maggiore,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 36 (1973), 1–50, p. 8; and Alessandro Tomei, Iacobus Torriti pictor: una vicenda figurativa del tardo Duecento romano (Rome, 1990), pp. 99–125. 40 Ferdinando Bologna, “The crowning disc of a Duecento ‘crucifixion’ and other points relevant to Duccio’s relationship to Cimabue,” Burlington magazine 125 (1983), 330–40, p. 339, note 38, has asked why, if Bellosi’s theory is correct, St Anthony of Padua was left with a beard in Torriti’s Santa Maria Maggiore mosaic (Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” p. 209, asks the same question), and why, conversely, if a beard was a Spiritual sign, St Anthony was shown beardless in the St Martin Chapel in the Lower Church. In response, Bellosi, Pecora, p. 33, note 17, says that St Anthony’s shaving awaited the successful outcome of the ‘operation’ on St Francis: ‘una volta riuscita l’operazione relativamente a san Francesco, la si adatto per estensione anche a sant’Antonio da Padova.’ He finds the first example of a beardless St Anthony in a Giottesque work of the early fourteenth century in the Santo of Padua. Dating the St Francis Cycle in the early 1290s, however, he contradicts his own argument. 41 Offner, Corpus. The fourteenth century, p. 242; William Cook, Images of St Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to ca. 1320 in Italy: a Catalogue, (Italian Medieval and Renaissance studies) 7 (Florence, 1999), p. 155, dates this work c. 1300–15. On the issue of sandals, see below, note 139.


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in Bellosi’s over-sketchy indications.’42 In the wake of this criticism, Bellosi himself has admitted the weakness of the argument.43 Three attempts have been made to connect the iconography of the frescoes with specific historical events. First, it has been suggested that the depiction of the Doctors of the Church in the vault above (which certainly preceded the painting of the St Francis Cycle) must have followed the institution of their feast-day in 1297.44 However, this argument is now universally agreed to be unsafe, since the Doctors of the Church were venerated and depicted together long before the official recognition of their cult.45 Rather more popular (because far more convenient for the Giotto attribution) has been the suggestion that the cycle must predate 1305, because Scene 1, ‘The Homage of the Simple Man’ (Fig. 6), which depicts the tower of the Palazzo Comunale of Assisi, apparently fails to depict an upper storey added to the building in that year.46 Several scholars, though, have warned against this facile argument, pointing out that the standard of topographical accuracy sought by the artists was not very high: witness the radically altered form of the Temple of Minerva in the same fresco or the altogether fantastic representation of the local church of S. Damiano in Scene 22, ‘St Francis mourned by St Clare’ (Fig. 4).47 The height of the tower in Scene 1 is as likely

42

Bologna, “The crowning disc,” p. 339, note 38. ‘Sono communque d’accordo col Bologna che questo argomento ‘barboso’ non è certo il più forte per proporre una retrodatazione delle Storie di san Francesco’ (Bellosi, Pecora, p. 33, note 17). William Cook is also sceptical of Bellosi’s argument, adducing ‘evidence that outside the particular context of that Roman mosaic [i.e., the apse-mosaic of Santa Maria Maggiore], there is no ideology connected with facial hair’ (Cook, Images of St Francis, p. 120; see also Cook, “The cycle of the life of St Francis,” p. 120). 44 First proposed in August Schmarsow, Kompositionsgesetz der Franziskuslegende in der Oberkirche zu Assisi (Leipzig, 1918), p. 103. Gnudi, Giotto, p. 237, is among those who accept the date as significant, a conclusion which leads him, uniquely, to date the start of the St Francis Cycle before the painting of the vault of the Doctors and the counterfaçade. 45 See, for instance: Bellosi, Pecora, p. 39, note 55; White, Art and architecture, p. 202; Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, p. 38; and Smart, The Assisi Problem, pp. 30–1. 46 This argument was first made in P. Leone Bracaloni, “Assisi Medioevale. Studio topografico,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 7 (1914), 3–19, p. 19, note 1; and repeated in Beda Kleinschmidt, Die Basilika San Francesco in Assisi, 2 (Berlin, 1926), p. 157. It has recently been resurrected by Bellosi and others (see: Bellosi, Pecora, p. 34, note 23, and p. 48; d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 32; and Basile, Giotto: le storie francescane, p. 13). 47 See Smart, The Assisi problem, p. 30; White, Art and architecture, pp. 217–8; Toesca, Il Trecento, p. 468, note 14; and Murray, “Notes,” pp. 70–1—a proponent of the 43

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as not to have been determined by compositional considerations. Little weight, therefore, can be attached to this argument. Finally, it has been argued by Murray that the depiction of the Lateran basilica in Scene 6, ‘The Dream of Innocent III,’ relates to its renovation by Nicholas IV, whose reign began in 1288.48 This evidence, at last, provides a relatively secure terminus post quem, though the date concerned is too early to be of any significance for the attributional problem. Murray’s argument is convincing, because he shows that the established iconography has been changed to emphasise the new façade and portico, evidently the result of Nicholas IV’s refurbishment, while Nicholas himself thought of his renovation of the Cathedral as the fulfilment of the prophecy implied by Innocent’s dream.49 This connection, however, provides us with a terminus post quem of 1288 only;50 it cannot be used to tie the fresco itself to Nicholas’ patronage, as Murray argues. The renovation of the Lateran by the Franciscan pope retained its symbolic value for the Order for many years—its significance did not die with Nicholas IV himself.51 ii)

The evidence of copies

The essential difficulty with most of the arguments just appraised is that they bear no inherent relation to the frescoes themselves: however plausible or not, their formulation is ultimately circumstantial, and for that reason any hypothesis that derives from them is provisional, representing a choice between conflicting indications. Bellosi, for example, arguing for a date in the early 1290s, is willing to very early dating of the cycle—whose considered verdict is that ‘the architecture is useless as a means of dating the cycle.’ 48 See Murray, “Notes,” pp. 71–4. 49 For criticism of Murray’s argument, see Volker Hoffmann, “Die Fassade von San Giovanni in Laterano 313/4—1649,” Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 17 (1978), 1–46, pp. 35–36. White has, in turn, criticised Hoffmann’s argument, ‘since the twelfth-century original construction of the portico is not incompatible with the refurbishment under Nicholas IV, for which there seems to be ample evidence’ (White, Art and architecture, pp. 344, and 629, note 1). 50 Although the plaque in the Lateran recording the renovation is dated 1291, the work could have been done at any point after Nicholas’ election, as Murray acknowledges. It should also be borne in mind that it is perfectly possible to depict a building (or part of a building) that is merely projected, as is testified by Andrea da Firenze’s depiction of the unrealised dome of Florence Cathedral in the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella. 51 For evidence of the continuing symbolic significance of the Lateran façade’s renovation for the Order, see Smart, The Assisi Problem, pp. 31–2.


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ignore Vasari’s statement about Fra Giovanni da Murro;52 Boskovits, placing more trust in Vasari’s testimony, disregards the possibility of Nicholas IV’s patronage.53 It is one opinion against another. One category of evidence remains, however, that can help break this deadlock: the identification of motifs or whole compositions copied from one work to another. The securest indication of the frescoes’ date so far discussed has been obtained from the internal evidence of the frescoes themselves: the 1288 terminus post quem provided by the depiction of the Lateran façade and portico. The identification of copies may be classified as a separate branch of internal evidence, relating to contemporary artistic, rather than historical, events. Providing potentially a precise means to determine a work’s chronological termini, situating it logically in relation to securely dated counterparts, it should be distinguished carefully from the general charting of ‘influence,’ which operates in terms so less specific as to make it entirely different in kind. The technique presents significant difficulties, which I shall address below, but it is invaluable and widely used, and may usefully be designated by the term ‘antigraphology’ (Gr. antigraphein, to copy). Admittedly a mouthful, this neologism is essential for the discussion that follows. The importance of antigraphological evidence is demonstrated by the fact that it supplies one of the clearest indications yet discovered for the date of the St Francis Cycle.54 Beyond the evident copies of the cycle extant throughout central and northern Italy,55 none of which, unfortunately, can assist in dating their prototype, several other works have been adduced by art historians as copies from, or models for, parts of the Assisi cycle. These previous arguments illustrate both the utility and the pitfalls of the method.

52

See Bellosi, Pecora, p. 25. See Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” pp. 207–9. 54 The method implies, of course, the extensive existence of workshop drawings during this period, which is now generally acknowledged. For evidence of the existence and use of workshop drawings, see Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, pp. 10, 24–27; and Basile, Giotto: le storie francescane, p. 15. 55 For the evident copies of the cycle, see: Julian Gardner, “The Louvre ‘Stigmatisation’ and the problem of the narrative altarpiece,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 45 (1982), 217–248, p. 232; Blume, Wandmalerei als Ordenspropaganda; and Cook, “The cycle of the life of St Francis.” Cook’s article, which is concerned primarily with iconographic choices, raises questions regarding the significance of copying (and altering) entire compositions. 53

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The most widely accepted argument derives from an altarpiece by Giuliano da Rimini, dated 1307,56 that is thought to copy motifs from both the St Francis Cycle and the St Nicholas Chapel in the Lower Church. White was the first to notice that Giuliano’s figure of St Francis bears a very close similarity to its counterpart in Scene 19 of the St Francis Cycle (Figs. 1 and 2).57 Though the quality of drawing is rather different, the correspondences are obvious: the general outline of the figure, the innovative kneeling posture, the placement of the feet, the three-quarter profile of the head, the hands raised to shoulder level, only one breaking the outline of the body, and so on. White’s observations have been supplemented by Meiss, who points out that Giuliano’s figure of St Clare in the same altarpiece also corresponds closely to her representation in the St Nicholas Chapel in the Lower Church.58 Implicitly, Meiss argues that the multiplication of correspondences he observes makes the initial connection far more secure. This point may be framed in simple mathematical terms: in effect, the discovery of a second, equally close correspondence between two works requires that any doubt about the initial connection, expressed in terms of a probability (say, for example, a 10% chance of mere coincidence), be squared (resulting in a final figure of, say, 1%).59 A second close correspondence, then, more than redoubles the significance of the first. For these reasons, all scholars have felt bound to accept that there is an antigraphological connection between Giuliano da Rimini’s Boston altarpiece and the St Francis Cycle’s ‘Stigmatisation.’ This established, both Meiss and White reasonably interpret the Boston altarpiece as a derivative work and argue that it copies the St Francis Cycle. Their reasons are twofold: on the one hand, it is far more likely that the provincial Riminese painter copied the prominent Assisi cycle than vice versa; and on the other, the twisted colon56 For this work, dated by an inscription, see Cook, Images of St Francis, pp. 75–76. The authenticity of the inscription has been questioned by Stubblebine (see Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art, pp. 70–77), but his arguments are unpersuasive. See John White, Studies in late medieval Italian art (London, 1984), p. 344, for a succinct refutation of Stubblebine’s view. 57 John White, “The date of the legend of St Francis at Assisi,” Burlington Magazine 98 (1956), 344–51, p. 344. 58 Meiss, Giotto and Assisi, p. 3. 59 These figures are not, of course, to be taken literally. It should also be noted that, for the sake of clarity, I here treat the whole of the Assisi complex as a single ‘work.’ The crucial criterion is that the images are in the same location.


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nade that Giuliano paints around his figures is clearly derived from a fresco cycle, where this compositional formula belongs. These considerations (to do with quality, prestige, visibility and contextual relevance) are sufficient to convince the vast majority of scholars that Assisi provided Giuliano with his models and, hence, that the St Francis Cycle pre-dates 1307.60 This conclusion, indeed, would seem sensible and deserves to be credited. However, it is not quite foolproof, since there is the faint possibility that the relationship is indirect rather than direct. In other words, both Giuliano da Rimini and the author of the Assisi ‘Stigmatisation’ might have been drawing on a common source.61 To insist on this point might seem a quibble, given the small probability of such an occurrence, but it is methodologically vital, as will become evident in the discussion that follows. A second antigraphological argument concerns the so-called ‘boy in the tree.’ In 1956, Roy Fisher published an article in the Burlington Magazine arguing that the figure of a boy climbing a tree in Scene 22 of the St Francis Cycle, ‘St Francis Mourned by St Clare’ (Fig. 4), was copied from a very similar motif in the Arena Chapel ‘Entry into Jerusalem’ (Fig. 3).62 The drawing of the two figures is very unusual and nearly identical, so that a connection of some sort is effectively certain and is accepted by all. Fisher maintains that the figure must have originated in a depiction of the Entry into Jerusalem, since boys climbing trees are canonical in this scene, being an integral part of the story. The Franciscan scene, he concludes, which St Bonaventure implicitly likens to the Entry into Jerusalem, adopts the 60 Only Bruce Cole denies that the Assisi fresco provided the model for Giuliano da Rimini’s figure (see below, note 61). Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art, p. 72, accepts the antigraphological argument, even adding the further observation that ‘the kneeling Magdalen in her chapel in the Lower Church appears also to have been the source for the Magdalen on Giuliano’s altarpiece,’ but he disagrees, of course, with the dating of the Riminese work (see above, note 56). 61 Bruce Cole, Giotto and Florentine painting, 1280–1375 (London, 1976), pp. 191–2, in fact, declines to accept the argument on these grounds, though his scepticism appears excessive in the wake of Meiss’ supplementary argument. White, himself, makes the same point forcibly: ‘Too many late thirteenth- and early fourteenthcentury frescoes and panel paintings have been lost for the possibility of derivation from a now unknown prototype ever to be discounted or even minimized’ (White, “The date of the legend of St Francis,” p. 348). However, this is too pessimistic: there are ways of minimizing and even excluding the possibility of derivation from a common source, as I shall discuss below. 62 See M. Roy Fisher, “Assisi, Padua and the boy in the tree,” Art Bulletin 38 (1956), 47–52.

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motif as a significant quotation. He also stresses the profound originality of Giotto’s work in the Arena Chapel and the formal felicity of the figure in the Paduan composition—as if it were ‘custommade.’63 All this would seem plausible and tends towards the conclusion, unthinkable for many, that the Arena Chapel predates the Assisi frescoes. But the argument’s Achilles’ heel is its inability to prove the originality of the Arena Chapel boy: he, too, as Fisher has to admit, might derive from some earlier ‘Entry into Jerusalem,’ now lost.64 Luciano Bellosi has presented some alternative arguments. He observes that the late thirteenth-century decoration of the Sala dei Notari in the Palazzo dei Priori in Perugia contains several motifs similar to ones found in the St Francis Cycle.65 Typical of these is an apsidal structure in the scene of ‘Gideon and the Angel’ that corresponds roughly—by no means perfectly—with that depicted in Scene 9 of the St Francis Cycle, ‘The Vision of the Thrones’ (Fig. 7).66 Bellosi hastily interprets the cruder Perugian example as a direct copy of the Assisi version. This is not a secure argument. Considering the works in isolation, it might seem plausible, since the Assisi fresco is more detailed, qualitatively superior and far more visible, but, placed in a broader perspective, the argument is less than convincing, for it is quite possible that the two works share a common source. As a proof, it is thus inadequate.67 Indeed, in comparison with Fisher’s argument it is rather weak, there being no contextual factor in its favour and the close dependency of some of the Assisi frescoes on previous designs being evident, unlike the Arena chapel compositions.68 The ‘Vision of the Thrones’ is itself one of the least accom63

Ibid., p. 52. ‘There will always exist, of course, the possibility that the two figures have a ‘common source’ in a prior example presently unknown’ (ibid., p. 52). It is also possible that the figure was devised originally for the Assisi fresco, despite the unusual context. This explanation is entertained by White, “The date of the legend of St Francis,” p. 348; and Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 86 and 101, note 86. 65 See Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 14–17. 66 Ibid., p. 16. It should be noted, too, that roughly two thirds of the Perugian motif appear to have been repaired and repainted during the nineteenth-century restoration of the frescoes. 67 Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” p. 208, for one, professes himself to be unimpressed by this and similar arguments. 68 Cf. Filippo Todini’s observation that the building in Scene 8, ‘The vision of the fiery chariot’, ‘è desunto alla lettera dall’affresco con l’Elemosina di San Nicola nel Sancta Sanctorum del Laterano, a conferma delle probabili desunzioni da per64


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plished of the St Francis frescoes in terms of its spatial construction, and it would seem likely that its apsidal structure derives from a stock prototype, similar to that rather obviously incorporated into the church of S. Damiano in the ‘Miracle of the Crucifix’ (Mulvaney, Fig. 5). The fact that the latter relates closely to the apsidal structure depicted in the Palazzodei Priori scene of a knight kneeling before an altar demonstrates the general prevalence of such motifs in paintings of the time.69 It is also pertinent to note that the altar and altar steps in the ‘Vision of the Thrones’ are certainly not original spatial constructions, since the drawing of the well in the Old Testament story above of ‘Joseph Rescued from the Well’ shares a nearly identical form.70 No more conclusive is the connection Bellosi makes between the pattern of the cornice adopted in the Perugia frescoes and that found in the St Francis Cycle:71 such patterns were workshop staples, and there is no evidence that the precise example identified by Bellosi evolved at Assisi.72 Attempting to show that it did so, Bellosi draws attention to the fact that the motif appears at Assisi before the painting of the St Francis Cycle, above the triforium of the great entrance arch, and argues that the motif was invented here, since it differs from the elaborate, divergent style used previously.73 But this is of no particular significance: the painters of the east end of the nave had initially to match the ‘Cimabuesque’ fictive coffering begun by

duti prototipi romani . . .’ (Filippo Todini, “Pittura del Duecento e del Trecento in Umbria e il cantiere di Assisi,” in La Pittura in Italia: il Duecento e il Trecento, ed. Enrico Castelnuovo, 2 (Milan, 1985), 375–413, p. 389). Attention might also be drawn to the clear dependency of the figures of St Francis and Brother Silvester in Scene 10, ‘The exorcism of the demons of Arezzo,’ upon the figures of Sts Peter and Paul in Cimabue’s ‘Fall of Simon Magus’ in the north transept of the Upper Church; or the close connection between the figure of St Francis in Scene 11, ‘The trial by fire,’ and the mourner standing behind the Virgin in the Upper Church ‘Lamentation.’ These connections, among others, demonstrate the tendency in the St Francis Cycle to adapt old drawings to novel compositions. 69 A strikingly similar arrangement to that found in the ‘Vision of the Thrones’ occurs in Cavallini’s ‘Ascension of St John’ in Santa Maria Donnaregina in Naples (for an illustration, see Tomei, Cavallini, p. 132, fig. 114). Closely related structures also occur in the c. 1277–80 frescoes of the Sancta Sanctorum. 70 For an illustration of this scene, see Joachim Poeschke, Die Kirche San Francesco in Assisi und ihre Wandmalereien (Munich, 1985), fig. 110. 71 Bellosi, Pecora, p. 15. 72 Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” p. 208, has also argued that this motif might derive from a common source. 73 Bellosi, Pecora, p. 35, note 29.

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Torriti in the second bay of the nave; they apparently introduced the new type (convergent and structurally improved) as soon as the need to match the earlier decoration disappeared.74 Finally, Bellosi argues that the narrative mosaics on the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, which he attributes to Rusuti and dates before 1297, depend for several motifs upon the St Francis scenes (e.g. Fig. 5).75 Whatever the merits of his antigraphological arguments in this case (and I shall return to one of them below), the date (and attribution) of these mosaics themselves is uncertain, and they therefore can provide no firm evidence for the chronology of the St Francis Cycle.76 Bearing in mind the various points made in this discussion, the requirements of a secure antigraphological argument may be summarised as follows: 1. Identifying the connection. First of all, one needs to establish the existence of an extremely close similarity between two motifs,

74 It is possible that the idea was introduced to Assisi by a new master arriving on the scene, if it was not already latent within the Isaac Master’s workshop. (It will become evident in due course, I hope, how this might have occurred.) It may also be noted that a close comparison of the fictive coffering above the triforium with that employed subsequently on the St Francis Cycle reveals slight differences— the addition of a frame around the rectangles filled with diamonds and a more elaborate treatment of the carved fields both on the sides of the modillions and on the indents—that might be thought to contradict Bellosi’s thesis (for illustrations, see Bellosi, Pecora, figs 25, 26 and 51). If these two distinct designs are carefully compared with the Sala dei Notari example, it can be seen that the Perugian motif actually corresponds more closely with the earlier and less visible Assisi version. It might be tempting, therefore, to date the Sala dei Notari frescoes before the St Francis Cycle, on the grounds that they use a relatively primitive version of this fictive coffering, later to be updated in the St Francis Cycle, which would then have provided a new model. But it would have to be admitted, of course, that the Perugian workshop could have reverted to a simpler version of the motif. 75 Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 17–25; and idem, “La Sala dei Notari, Martino da Perugia e un ante quem per il problemma di Assisi,” in Per Maria Cionini Visani (Turin, 1977), pp. 22–25. 76 For the ‘Rusuti’ mosaics and arguments for dating them before 1297, see Gardner, “Pope Nicholas IV,” pp. 28–33. Vasari states that the stories of Pope Liberius were added by Gaddo Gaddi after 1308 (Vasari, Le vite, 1, p. 347) and this evidence is regarded as reliable by Frank Mather (see Frank Mather Jr, The Isaac Master (Princeton, 1932), pp. 26–28). Tomei is also inclined to accept Vasari’s dating (see Tomei, Cavallini, pp. 122–25). The mosaics have also been dated c. 1318–20 by Bologna, who provides an effective criticism of Gardner’s dating argument regarding the ruby atop the papal tiara (see Ferdinando Bologna, I pittori alla corte angioina di Napoli (Rome, 1969), pp. 132–5 and p. 339, note 38).


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such that a chance coincidence of forms seems implausible. If two or more such connections can be made, the possibility that the close similarity is coincidental becomes negligible. 2. Determining the likely direction of influence. The question to be addressed is: if one of these motifs copies the other, which is the more likely to do so? Evidence is required that one is likely to be derivative, while the other is likely to be original. A series of principles may be employed in this regard: those of quality, originality, visibility, prestige, and contextual relevance. 3. Proving the originality of the motif. Ultimately, that example which is considered to be original has to be proved to be so, in order to rule out the possibility of a common source. Usually, this involves demonstrating either that the motif is specific to the site or commission or that the evolution of the drawing can be traced. N.B. In the absence of a definite proof, it may be possible to create a statistical proof. If stages 1 and 2 of the process can be repeated convincingly for two or more motifs, each of them indicating the same likely direction of borrowing, then it may be regarded as increasingly unlikely that there was a common source. None of the arguments discussed above manages to fulfil this tripartite scheme, although they achieve varying levels of success. Bellosi’s individual arguments do not accomplish the second stage, since the likelihood of the Assisi motifs being original models is never properly demonstrated. Cumulatively, therefore, they are unconvincing. Fisher’s fails at the third, since, despite the fact that he provides plausible arguments indicating the likely direction of influence, Giotto’s Arena Chapel ‘boy in the tree’ is not proven to be original. The argument is weak, too, because it stands alone. White’s argument is stronger than Fisher’s (largely because the status of the Riminese panel is uncontroversial), but still not conclusive. However, coupled with Meiss’ complementary argument, it partakes of a convincing statistical proof. The Giuliano da Rimini connection, then, may be taken as a yardstick against which further antigraphological arguments may be measured.

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Establishing the Chronological Termini

Lamps

Having appraised the arguments adduced in the past, we may attempt to establish the chronological termini within which the frescoes must have been painted. The current situation is precisely stated by John White, with all the necessary caution: ‘Isolated from purely stylistic considerations, the dating evidence for the Legend of St Francis leads to the conclusion that it was almost certainly painted after 1290–1, not necessarily after 1296, and very probably before 1307.’77 The depiction of the Lateran portico and the apparent copy of the Assisi ‘Stigmatisation’ by Giuliano da Rimini are, quite rightly, the only arguments considered reliable. In the discussion that follows, I shall present new antigraphological evidence that assists in further refining the cycle’s dating. The essential comparison that is always made with the Assisi St Francis Cycle is that with Giotto’s Arena Chapel, now generally held to have been completed by 25 March 1305.78 Tired as the comparison may seem, there are a number of striking similarities of motif to be found between these picture-cycles that have not yet been noticed or investigated. In 1957 Ursula Schlegel published an essay on the Arena Chapel in which she considered the significance of the illusionistic wall-chambers painted by Giotto on either side of the triumphal arch (Figs. 9 and 10).79 Her cogent explanation for these puzzling illusionistic spaces I shall briefly discuss below. But of more immediate interest is a passing reference she makes to a detail in the St Francis Cycle at Assisi: observing Giotto’s depiction of a dangling rope in either chamber, meant for the raising and lowering of the fictive lamps, she notes that the lamps in the St Francis Legend at Assisi ‘show the same exactitude in the description.’80 The lamps she is referring to occur in Scene 9, ‘The Vision of the Thrones,’ and Scene 22,

77

White, Art and architecture, p. 344. For the dating of the Arena Chapel, see below, note 123. 79 See Ursula Schlegel, “On the picture program of the Arena Chapel,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 20 (1957), 125–46 (repr. in James Stubblebine, ed., Giotto: the Arena chapel frescoes, London, 1969, 182–202) (subsequent citations are to this reprint). 80 Ibid., p. 189. 78


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‘The Verification of the Stigmata’ (Mulvaney, Fig. 4). Schlegel does not follow up her observation, but it repays further thought. For the lamps in the Assisi and Padua frescoes are not merely connected by the inclusion of a pull-string: more significantly, they are extremely close in form. A total of four lamps have to be taken into consideration, and these may each be given a label for ease of reference: those in the Assisi ‘Vision of the Thrones’ and ‘The Verification of the Stigmata’ may be called A1 and A2 respectively (Figs. 11b and 12b); those in the right-hand and left-hand fictive chambers in the Arena Chapel may be termed P1 and P2 respectively (Figs. 12a and 11a). The similarities and differences between these lamps (no two are completely identical) should be scrutinised minutely, beginning with the two in the Assisi scenes. It is evident, for a start, that, despite manifest differences, A2 is based upon the same drawing as A1. The general pattern of the verticals, hoops and sconces is identical. That A1 provided the model is unquestionable, since ‘The Vision of the Thrones’ was executed before ‘The Verification of the Stigmata,’ as is proved by the sequence of the giornate.81 It is vital, though, to pay as close attention to the differences between them as to the similarities. A2, for instance, includes an extra sconce, dangling from the central hook. This alteration to the initial drawing must have an iconographic justification, the resulting seven sconces presumably intended as a reference to the seven lamps of Revelation.82 The six sconces that appear in the ‘Vision of the Thrones,’ on the other hand, may allude to the identification of St Francis with the Angel of the Sixth Seal (an identification heavily emphasised by St Bonaventure),83 since the story of the ‘Vision of the Thrones’ concerns his angelic status. The tops of the two 81 For the giornate of the Assisi St Francis Cycle, see Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il Cantiere di Giotto, pp. 19–24. 82 Cf. Revelation, 4:5: ‘and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.’ Schlegel, “On the picture program,” p. 198, says the seven lamps here refer to the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. An apocalyptic reference, though, is both more precise and more likely within the context of the programme as a whole (I shall discuss the profoundly apocalyptic nature of the St Francis Cycle on a future occasion). 83 See, e.g., St Bonaventure, The major legend of St Francis, Prologue, trans. (anon.) in Francis of Assisi: early documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann and William Short, 2 (London, 2000), 525–683, at p. 527. For further references and discussion, see Richard Emmerson and Ronald Herzman, The apocalyptic imagination in Medieval literature (Philadelphia, 1992), pp. 37–39, 44–53.

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lamps are also markedly different: A1 includes on the right a fourth curved strap, eliminated in A2, that descends only as far as the upper hoop. This extra strap is structurally illogical but makes a more satisfying two-dimensional pattern. Additionally, the left-hand sconces in A2 have been moved well to the right, so that they appear almost vertically beneath the central ones, and the ellipses formed by the hoops have been broadened. From this analysis, it can be appreciated that even two drawings which are certainly directly related may differ slightly both in form and content. With this in mind, let us now transfer attention to the relationship between the Assisi lamps and those in Padua. Of the two Assisi lamps, A1 is closer to the Paduan lamps, as will become apparent. It is closer, however, to P2 than to P1, for three reasons: a) its inner sconces, like those of P2, touch the central vertical, which is not true of P1; b) the angle of declination between the two outer sconces on each level is very similar to that in P2, this angle being appreciably flatter in P1; and c) it is oriented the same way as P2. For these reasons, it is crucial in the first place to describe and evaluate the comparison between A1 and P2. Comparing these lamps closely, it soon becomes apparent that the two drawings are connected: the number of sconces, and hence the number of hoops, has been altered, presumably for iconographic reasons (cf. the addition of a sconce in A2), but the underlying structure is, once again, nearly identical.84 Three vertical straps are disposed at equal distances around the hoops, curving in towards a central hook at the top. One descends just inside the left-hand apexes of the hoops (a subtle spatial effect that is neglected in A2), the others running down slightly to the right of centre, similarly in each case. The sconces, which could be arranged in any configuration, happen to hang in exactly analogous positions, creating similar triangular patterns among themselves, and those in A1 share precisely the same form as the upper and lower sets in P2 (the middle trio of sconces in P2 are of a different, bulbous form). The ellipses formed by the hoops are also precisely comparable. In four respects A1 is actually closer to P2 than it is to A2, which we know to be directly based upon A1: in the horizontal coordinate of the left-hand vertical strap, as just mentioned; 84 For the symbolism of the nine lamps, see Schlegel, “On the picture program,” p. 191; and Laurine Mack Bongiorno, “The theme of the Old and New Law in the Arena Chapel,” Art Bulletin 50 (1968), 11–20, p. 19.


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in the triangular relationships of the sconces (cf. Fig. 13); in the positions of the sconces relative to the hoops (cf. Fig. 13); and in the broader gap between the central and right-hand verticals (reflecting the similar placing of these verticals). A2 thus acts as a ‘control’ by which we can gauge the extraordinary similarity of A1 and P2. The use of such controls is a vital part of the current procedure.85 Just for good measure, another roughly contemporary lamp by Giotto (to be labelled F) can be brought into the equation as well—that depicted in the Peruzzi chapel ‘Ascension of St John’ (Fig. 16),86 which certainly descends from the Arena Chapel lamps and which offers as close a comparison as can otherwise be found (most depicted lamps at this date are hung individually, like those in Cimabue’s ‘The Virgin taking leave of the Apostles’ in the tribune of the Upper Church). The detailed dissimilarity of this other example—note especially the straight straps at the top, the fuller profile of the sconces and their different two-dimensional arrangement—helps confirm the identity of the Assisi and Padua drawings. The correspondences between them are extremely detailed and cannot conceivably be ascribed to chance, especially given the rarity of such realistic depictions in this period. They should therefore be recognised as variants of the same drawing. The question is: where was this drawing first devised? In order to answer this question, it is necessary, first of all, to examine the illusionistic chambers that house the Paduan lamps, hereafter referred to as C1 and C2. Only once the unique form of these compositions has been considered will it be possible to evaluate the fictive lamps they contain. The essential point to make regarding the fictive wall-chambers at Padua is that Giotto has carefully constructed their perspective so as to provide a convincing illusion for someone standing in the centre 85 The need for controls has also been recognised by White. He compares his two figures of the stigmatised St Francis with other, roughly contemporary examples, noting that these ‘later variants serve, indeed, to throw into relief the exceptionally close connexion that exists between the fresco at Assisi and the Riminese panel’ (White, “The date of the legend of St Francis,” pp. 347–8). 86 The dating of the Peruzzi Chapel frescoes varies considerably. Italian scholars generally place it in the second decade of the Trecento (e.g., d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 261, who dates it 1314–15), while others tend to date it later in Giotto’s career (e.g., Eve Borsook and Leonetto Tintori, Giotto: the Peruzzi chapel (New York, 1965), pp. 10–11, who date it roughly 1325–30). I myself suspect that Previtali’s estimate of c. 1310 may be nearest the mark (see Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, p. 107).

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of the nave. Emphatically, they were not designed to be seen from directly ahead, as they are usually experienced when seen in reproduction. When seen from the centre of the nave, the side-walls of the fictive chambers seem to resolve themselves at right-angles to the real architecture; similarly, the vault, whose drawing assumes a very low viewpoint, becomes a convincing illusion (cf. Fig. 14). Longhi, Gioseffi and Bellosi, among others, have remarked upon this brilliant effect.87 A thorough consideration of the scenes’ ‘perspective’ has also been undertaken by Ursula Schlegel in the study mentioned earlier.88 Although she misleads slightly in implying that the intended viewpoints were from in front of the altars on the respective opposite sides of the nave—these were only installed in the late sixteenth century89—her analysis of the illusionistic distortion involved is generally convincing. As she acutely observes, the side walls, when viewed from the correct angle, appear very shallow. It has not been sufficiently appreciated by subsequent scholars that this provides extremely useful evidence for their interpretation.90 Since the chambers are illusionistic extensions of the real architecture of the church, they must be viewed in terms of their ‘actual’ dimensions.91 These are very

87 See Roberto Longhi, “Giotto spazioso,” Paragone 31 (1952), 18–24, p. 20; Decio Gioseffi, Giotto architetto (Milan, 1963), p. 53; Luciano Bellosi, “La rappresentazione dello spazio,” in Storia dell’arte italiana, 4 (Turin, 1980) 6–39, pp. 14–15. 88 See Schlegel, “On the picture program,” pp. 196–7. 89 See Robin Simon, “Giotto and after: altars and alterations in the Arena Chapel,” Apollo 142 (1995), 24–36, pp. 27 and 34, note 21. Simon dates the side-altars c. 1595, and specifically criticises Schlegel’s view. 90 The chambers are now routinely referred to as ‘coretti’ (e.g., Giuseppe Basile, Giotto: la capella degli Scrovegni (Milan, 1992), p. 271: ‘definite capelle segrete o coretti’). Schlegel herself stresses that the apparent dimensions of the fictive spaces (which need not be measured literally for their small dimensions to be evident) constitute ‘final proof that we are not to look at Giotto’s painted chambers as some kind of chapels, but as representations of tombs’ (Schlegel, “On the picture program,” p. 197). The same might be said with regard to the two fictive niches painted by Altichiero in the S. Giacomo chapel in the Santo, which provide the closest parallel to Giotto’s Arena Chapel chambers, not least in their carefully orchestrated illusionism, as John Richards explains: ‘the chapel’s illusionism is carefully focused. The Crucifixion and the Ramiro wall are designed to be seen from a shared optimum viewpoint, just in front of the altar . . . It is from here, too, that the trompel’oeil niches flanking the Crucifixion line up with the tombs above them and with the orthogonals of the main fresco. This motif seems to be derived from the ‘sidechapels’ of the Arena Chapel sanctuary arch’ ( John Richards, Altichiero: an artist and his patrons in the Italian Trecento (Cambridge, 2000), p. 159). 91 It is pertinent to recall, here, Pietro Lorenzetti’s famous illusionistic bench in the Lower Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, and Taddeo Gaddi’s fictive niches in


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small: the chambers would be roughly 1.3 x 0.6 m in plan.92 They cannot, therefore, be fictive chapels, entered from the presbytery, as Longhi believed.93 The height of the pull-string above the imagined floor also precludes this idea.94 They cannot be tiny ‘choirs’ either: they would have to be entered by means of a ladder from the nave— there is no door into them—and people standing in them would continually bump their heads against the vaults and lamps.95 Evidently, these apparent spaces were not intended to be ‘occupied.’ The only possibility would seem to be, therefore, that, as Schlegel argues, they are false cenotaphs, equipped with, ‘the lamps that belong on every Christian grave according to the repeated prayer of the Requiem Mass.’96 That Giotto himself associated this type of lamp with tombs is demonstrated by the example in the Peruzzi Chapel ‘Ascension of St John’ (Fig. 16), which is the only other such lamp in Giotto’s oeuvre and which hangs directly above the erstwhile grave of St John.97 With the illusionistic nature of the Arena Chapel chambers in mind, let us return to the relationship between the two lamps, A1 and P2: which is more likely to be derivative and which original? the Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. These illusions, too, depend upon their scale being taken literally, at 1:1. 92 The notional depth of the chambers can be gauged by the apparently square panels that they house. The vertical (and hence barely foreshortened) sides of these squares are roughly 0.2m in length; as the walls are three squares across, the chambers must notionally be about 0.6m deep. (These measurements are very approximate.) 93 Longhi, “Giotto spazioso,” p. 21. 94 The location of the pull-string is quite compatible with the wall-tomb interpretation (pace Gioseffi, Giotto architetto, p. 53), since it could easily be reached over the supposed sarcophagus. 95 Assuming a floor level with the base of the marble slab in front, the crossing of the vault would be only about 1.8 m high. 96 Schlegel, “On the picture program,” p. 191. Ibid., p. 198, demonstrates effectively, by means of numerous examples, that lamps were customarily hung above tombs. Bongiorno, “The theme of the Old and New Law,” p. 18, agrees with her identification of the chambers as cenotaphs. 97 The belief is present in some quarters (e.g., Longhi, “Giotto spazioso,” p. 21; and Basile, Giotto: la capella degli Scrovegni, p. 271) that because the chambers are illusionistic they should not be regarded as symbolic. But these two characteristics are not mutually exclusive: fictive architecture can be the bearer of meaning. To take an apposite example, the painted cenotaph at the base of Masaccio’s Trinità fresco in Santa Maria Novella, a similar illusionistic marvel, is very obviously symbolic, inscribed, as it is, with the words, ‘IO. FU. QUEL. CHE. VOI. SETE: E QUEL CHI SON VOI. ANCOR. SARETE.’ In this regard, too, it should be said that, broadly speaking, Schlegel’s interpretation of the supposed cenotaphs’ symbolic rôle within the iconographic programme of the chapel is convincing.

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Laying aside all preconceptions regarding the works’ relative chronology (difficult but crucial), an initial appraisal should find in favour of P2, for the following reasons. The lamp in Giotto’s fictive chamber bears every sign of having been designed for its situation. It forms an integral part of an unprecedented illusionistic scene designed to be viewed by someone standing in the centre of the nave below. Its perspectival construction is perfectly suited to this context and would seem to have been devised especially for the purpose. Given the unique di sotto in su viewpoint of the fresco (an innovatory device not to be emulated until the time of Donatello), it may be considered extremely unlikely that any lamp drawn on a previous occasion could have fulfilled such a precisely determined illusionistic rôle. The Peruzzi Chapel lamp, for example, is drawn from too high a view-point— its ellipses are noticeably narrower. This should only be expected, since the notional view-point of ‘The Ascension of St John’—like that of every other contemporary scene—is contained within the picture-field itself. In addition, Giotto’s lamp is so naturalistically drawn that it is difficult to believe that it was not initially drafted in front of a real object. The Assisi lamp, by contrast, shows every sign of having been copied from a previous drawing. Its form is not so thoroughly naturalistic, and there is one clear sign that it was not drawn in front of a real lamp: the structurally illogical fourth curved vertical, which betrays a tendency towards two-dimensional thinking and which was evidently included, as noted above, for purely formal reasons. The ‘Vision of the Thrones,’ as I have already said, is among the most spatially poor of all the scenes in the St Francis Cycle, despite the relative simplicity of the setting. Adriano Prandi, who has made a study of the cycle’s perspective, holds it up as an example of a confused spatial composition: ‘the viewpoints are numerous and disorganised: the thrones are seen from above and from the left, but the front of the footrests is parallel to the picture-plane; the aedicula is also viewed frontally, but the viewpoint is halfway up its height and to the right.’98 Moreover, its architecture appears to be fundamen-

98 ‘. . . i punti di vista sono molteplici da sinistra, ma la fronte dei suppedanei ha, sì, anch’essa il prospetto sul piano di sua altezza e a destra’ (Adriano Prandi, Giotto,” in Giotto e il suo tempo, 149–59, noticeably weak in this fresco, as well.

e disorganici: i troni sono visti dall’alto e è parallela al piano del dipinto; l’edicola, fronte, ma il punto di vista è a metà della “Spunti per lo studio della prospettiva di at p. 154). The drawing of St Francis is


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tally derivative: the altar and steps, as noted previously, correspond closely to the drawing of a well in one of the Joseph scenes above, while the apse is probably an elaboration of a stock motif—in spatial terms it is certainly not intelligently conceived. Given all this, the relatively complex drawing of the lamp seems out of place, and it would seem reasonable to suppose that the artist borrowed it from elsewhere. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that, perspectivally, A2 seems ill-adapted to its spatial environment, awkward as this is, being represented from too low a vantage-point. Everything considered, it may be said that P2 is likely to be original, while A1 is likely to be derivative. This provisional conclusion should prepare us for the possibility that, contrary to orthodox opinion, the Assisi St Francis Cycle might actually post-date the Arena Chapel. In order to proceed, it is now necessary to consider in further detail the two Arena Chapel chambers—what is the exact relationship between them? A cursory glance suggests that they are perfect reflections of one another, presumably achieved by the reversal of a single drawing. But an attentive game of spot-the-difference reveals a number of significant variations, and these should be considered very carefully. The designs are illusionistically determined: we can therefore confidently ascribe any important differences between them to the artist’s desire to improve the illusionism of his work. It would follow that the more successful of the two is the second, corrected version. It might be objected to this that whichever is deemed inferior might be an imperfect copy by an assistant,99 but the nature of the divergences and the evidence of Giotto’s practice in the Arena Chapel make this very unlikely. The difficulties facing Giotto when he took up the challenge of this illusionistic trick (as far as we know, the first of its kind) should not be underestimated. He was attempting to design an illusion that would work when viewed from an oblique angle. Presumably, he would have worked out the design initially on paper and then in a detailed sinopia on the wall.100 But the final effect of his work could not have been perfectly anticipated;

99 This possibility has been suggested by Meiss and Tintori in a passing comment: ‘the simulated chapel on the right side of the chancel arch is inferior to that on the left, and probably a copy of it’ (Millard Meiss and Leonetto Tintori, The painting of the life of St Francis in Assisi (New York, 1962), p. 184, note 5). The point, though, is not argued; it is purely a value judgement. 100 Any sinopie beneath the fictive chambers have not, as yet, been uncovered.

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he needed to get down from the scaffold and view the finished product to assess its effect. Given these circumstances, and remembering that he had no theoretical basis for his projection,101 it would have been well-nigh miraculous if he had achieved a perfect result at the first attempt. With a finished experiment before him, however, he could study the problem afresh, making the odd adjustment to his composition so as to improve the result the second time round. This is a realistic scenario that accounts for the principal changes described below. The idea, on the other hand, that an incompetent assistant might have made numerous and significant alterations to his master’s carefully considered design may be regarded as implausible. There is ample evidence in the Arena Chapel itself that, where an architectural drawing was to be repeated, Giotto and his assistants were capable of replicating it exactly. For example, the temple-structure that appears first in ‘The Presentation of the Rods’ is reproduced on two further occasions without a single variation; and the Virgin’s house on either side of the triumphal arch in ‘The Annunciation’ is perfectly reflected (Fig. 8).102 The Paduan workshop evidently had no difficulty in reproducing and reflecting such drawings with remarkable accuracy. And, in any case, Giotto would surely have taken special care with the fictive chambers, whose raison d’être was a precise and daring illusionism. It therefore makes no sense to ascribe the differences between the two fictive chambers to an assistant’s negligence. What, then, are the differences to be discerned between C1 and C2? There are principally three that affect the spatial effect of the chambers, and these all tend towards the greater illusionistic success

101 The rules of thumb developed by Giotto and his contemporaries for constructing convincing spatial compositions did not constitute a coherent theory of perspective, which was developed only in the fifteenth century (see Martin Kemp, The science of art: optical themes in western art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (London, 1990), pp. 9–11; and John White, The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space, 3rd ed. (London, 1987), esp. p. 60). The brilliant illusionism of Giotto’s fictive chambers has in the past lead to the misleading idea that he had a theoretical understanding of perspective (e.g., Longhi, “Giotto spazioso,” p. 23: ‘Qui in queste ‘marginalia’ è lecito veramente parlare di prospettiva in toto; in accezione, intendo, quattrocentesco;’ and Prandi, “Spunti,” pp. 156–9). 102 St Anne’s house in the ‘Annunciation to St Anne’ and the ‘Birth of the Virgin’ and the stable of the ‘Nativity’ and the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ provide further evidence of the workshop’s skill at reproducing structures very precisely.


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of C2, thus implying that it was Giotto’s corrected version.103 First of all, in C2 Giotto adjusts the springing of the foremost rib, allowing it to remain visible for longer as it descends to its hidden impost. This makes the structure far clearer and corrects the premature ‘loss’ of this rib behind the outer arch in C1. It also noticeably affects the two-dimensional pattern made by the vault above. (Of course, no competent assistant, squaring up the drawing, could have departed so radically from his model.) Secondly, in C2 Giotto omits the mottled marble effect painted on the walls of the chamber in C1, a simplification that greatly enhances the structural clarity of the space. (Once more, it goes without saying that an assistant could not have altered this on his own initiative.) Thirdly, he rethinks the drawing of the furthermost rib, the only one that is seen in its full extent: in C1, this rib appears decidedly flat, almost like a rainbow, while in C2 it occupies space far more convincingly, its further side mostly hidden from view.104 It would appear reasonable to conclude from this analysis that C1/P1 preceded C2/P2: the latter was Giotto’s improved version of the illusion. There is also a clear practical reason to suppose that C1 was executed before C2. It appears that Giotto and his team of assistants executed all four walls of the Arena Chapel simultaneously, register by register, starting at the highest level and following the narrative order of the scenes.105 For practical reasons, C1 was probably painted 103 It is significant that Schlegel and others choose to illustrate C2 photographed from the correct angle, rather than C1, in order to demonstrate the illusionistic effect. 104 A number of other minor adjustments were also made. Most notably, the initial drawing of the lamp (P1) was slightly altered in two respects: the levels of the three innermost sconces in P1 were slightly raised in P2; and in P2 the central sconces were brought in to touch the central vertical. Other amendments included: altering the height and depth of the window; raising the height of the capitals of the entrance arch; tinkering with the position of the lamp; and modifying the dimensions and proportions of the entrance arch (which has slight consequences for the drawing of the vault). 105 See Basile, Giotto: la capella degli Scrovegni, pp. 10–12; and John White, “Cimabue and Assisi: working methods and art historical consequences,” Art History 4 (1981), 355–83, p. 378. Creighton Gilbert, on the other hand, has argued that the whole of the chancel arch was decorated first (Creighton Gilbert, “The sequence of execution in the Arena Chapel,” in Essays in Honour of Walter Friedlaender (New York, 1965), pp. 80–86 (repr. Ladis, ed., Giotto and the world of early Italian art, 2, pp. 104–10). This is unlikely for two practical reasons: the danger of spoiling work already completed and the need to erect scaffolding more than once in the same location. White, “Cimabue and Assisi,” pp. 382–83, note 25, specifically criticises Gilbert’s hypothesis as impractical.

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at the same time as the ‘Last Supper’ next to it, when the scaffolding was up in that corner of the chapel; by the same token, C2 would probably have been executed at the same time as its neighbour, the ‘Pentecost.’106 Since the ‘Last Supper’ was almost certainly painted before the ‘Pentecost’, we may conclude that C1 was painted before C2. If these arguments are accepted, the implications are clear. In the Arena Chapel we can watch, as it were, as Giotto fine-tunes his illusionistic drawing of the chamber and the lamp. The drawing C2/P2, it seems, originated as a ‘corrected’ version of C1/P1. Remembering, then, that A1 is connected to P2, rather than to P1, we can rule out the possibility of a common source and say that P2 itself, whose genesis we have traced, served as the model for A1. Giotto’s fictive chambers in the Arena Chapel, in that case, must have been painted before Scene 9 of the St Francis Cycle. In order to deny this conclusion, one would have to argue that C2/P2 is actually the first of Giotto’s fictive chambers, a proposition that would be hard to sustain. Even then, one would still face those initial criteria that argue for the originality of Giotto’s Padua lamps: their illusionistic perspective, designed for a uniquely low viewpoint; their extraordinary realism, as if drawn from life; and the manifest originality of Giotto’s work in the Arena Chapel. Any such argument would seem to proceed from a prejudiced faith in the orthodox chronology rather than from an objective evaluation of the antigraphological evidence. There is very little ambiguity in the visual relationships just analysed. The lamps, therefore, begin to illuminate the dark wood of the ‘Assisi Problem.’ ii)

Chambers

But the argument does not stop with them. Among a number of other correspondences between motifs in the Arena Chapel frescoes and in the St Francis Cycle (some noticed by previous scholars, some to be pointed out below), there is one that stands out. It is not only Giotto’s lamp that recurs in the Assisi frescoes: the fictive chamber itself can be shown to relate antigraphologically to the architectural

106 Cf. Zanardi’s opinion that in the Upper Church of Assisi the ‘Preaching to the birds’ was executed at the same time as the ‘Death of the Knight of Celano’, using the same scaffolding (Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, p. 51).


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bays on the left and right of Scene 17 of the cycle, ‘St Francis Preaching Before Honorius III’ (Fig. 15). The similarities are most easily appreciated if the right-hand bay in the Assisi fresco is isolated from its surroundings and reversed (a detail hereafter referred to as H) and compared with C2 (Figs. 9 and 18).107 To begin with, the vaults are almost identical, the patterns created by the crossing of their ribs being a near perfect match. The very minor differences are explicable as a result of the Assisi artist adapting the design to a different architectural context (an ecclesiastical hall rather than a wall-tomb) and a slightly narrower width (determined by a three-fold division of the picture-field). A second, highly significant correspondence is the repetition of an identical window, bifurcated with a small quatrefoil above, in the rear walls of both H and C2.108 It should be emphasised that in H this window displays exactly the same proportions as it does in C2—both internally and in relation to the surrounding wall.109 It is also placed at approximately the same height relative to the springing of the ribs. The window in the side wall of H, which is not found in C2, nevertheless corresponds neatly to the central squares of the lateral wall in Giotto’s design, the line of its base coinciding with the lowest horizontal bar in C2 (the top of the window, significantly, is spatially

107 It is preferable to use the right-hand bay, because the left-hand side is scarred by a large crack in the plaster. The substitution is quite legitimate, since both sides are perfect reflections of one another, unlike the fictive chambers in the Arena Chapel. 108 Schlegel, “On the picture program,” p. 198, draws attention to another example of a painted wall-tomb provided with a window. 109 In order to assist this comparison, the following approximate ratios may be calculated, with reference to Figs. 19 and 20 respectively:

1) The widths of the window-lights in relation to their height: ab/de: ab/de : a’b’/d’e’ = 1 : 1.086 2) The widths of the window-lights in relation to the width of the wall: ab/ac : a’b’/a’c’ = 1 : 1.004 3) The height of the window-lights in relation to the height of the wall: de/df : d’e’/d’f ’ = 1 : 1.003 Though the measurements used to derive these ratios are necessarily approximate (being made from photographs, since I have not had access to the walls), the repeatedly close correspondence—an average discrepancy in the order of 3%—is highly significant. Similar calculations comparing C2 and H with the vault and window on the right in the Giottesque scene of ‘Christ among the Doctors’ from the Lower Church (Fig. 17)—a composition, it should be emphasised, that certainly took its departure from C2—yield average discrepancies of roughly 16% and 14% respectively. Few other compositions are close enough even to be compared in this manner.

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inarticulate). In addition, the manner in which the Honorius fresco defines the foreground plane of the picture with the spandrels of the arches exactly matches the situation in Giotto’s work, where the foreground plane is logically identified with the interior wall-surface of the chapel itself. Remarkably, even the colouring is similar. The extraordinary nature of these similarities may best be gauged, once again, if the works are compared with a control. Indeed, given the potential importance of the argument, three controls may be cited. First of all, we may compare H with the vaults depicted in the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaic of ‘Patrizio Giovanni before Pope Liberius’ (Fig. 15). Bellosi says of these vaults that they ‘recall intensely the scene in Assisi of the “Preaching to Honorius,”’110 and believes that they are copied directly from the Assisi fresco. He may well be right in this, but it is undeniable that they are far less closely related to H than is C2. As Bellosi himself explains, ‘While in the Assisi scene they [the vaults] are defined with an extraordinary clarity and credibility, in the Roman mosaic one cannot make out how the vaults are actually articulated, on which pilaster a given rib is supported, how one rib crosses another, etc.’111 A second example that may well owe a debt to H is the chamber depicted in Simone Martini’s ‘Meditation of St Martin’ from the St Martin Chapel in the Lower Church;112 but, once again, the differences discernible here are far greater: the increased size and different form of the window, the rounded arch, the simpler pattern of the ribs, the narrower field of the vault, the different colouring, the lack of colonettes, and so on. Simone has constructed the space anew. Lastly, we may compare another architectural bay drawn by Giotto: that on the left in his Assisi ‘Christ among the Doctors’ (Fig. 17).113

110

‘. . . richiamano intensamente la scena assisiate della “Predica ad Onorio”’ (Bellosi, Pecora, p. 19). Bellosi puts great store by this argument. 111 ‘Mentre nella scena assisiate esse sono definite con una chiarezza e una credibilità straordinarie, nel mosaico romano non si riesce a capire come queste volte si articolano realmente, su quale pilastro vada a poggiare quel dato costolone, come si incroci con quell’altro, ecc.’ (Bellosi, Pecora, p. 22). 112 Simone’s frescoes in the chapel of St Martin are now usually dated to the second decade of the Trecento (see, e.g., Andrew Martindale, Simone Martini (Oxford, 1988), pp. 21–2). 113 Due to the exceptional coherence of its spatial construction, consistent with Giotto’s unequalled ability to conceive three-dimensional structures, I think it likely that that the architecture in this scene was designed by Giotto, though its execu-


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This comparison is slightly closer, perhaps, than that with Simone’s design, but Giotto’s drawing is no less restructured. The vault is more acutely foreshortened; the colours and decorative bands are quite unrelated; the proportions of the window are different, as is its size and situation in relation to the wall;114 the ribs describe a different pattern; and the spandrels of the arch do not define the foreground plane. In these respects Giotto’s Lower Church design is still a long way from H—and, by extension, from C2.115 These three comparisons neatly demonstrate the uniqueness of the drawing that underlies both H and C2. And to return to a point I made at the outset of my discussion, it should be appreciated that the significance of this second coincidence of forms is more than redoubled by the existence of the first, that regarding the lamps. Any possibility that the formal similarities observed are merely coincidental is reduced effectively to zero by the binary connection. Giotto’s fictive chamber and the architectural bay in the Honorius fresco must be antigraphologically connected.116 This provides us with a vital argument. For there can be no question but that the design of the fictive chambers was created by Giotto in Padua, in order to fulfil a unique illusionistic rôle. No scholar has ever doubted their originality: they constitute, as Bellosi says, ‘a case of pure architectural illusionism without precedent in the history of Italian painting.’117 It follows that the Assisi Honorius fresco, which

tion (along with the design and execution of the figures) was entrusted to an able collaborator and workshop hands. Generally, scholars attribute the whole of this scene to a follower of Giotto, the so-called ‘Parente di Giotto’ (see Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, pp. 98–100; and d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 222). 114 See above, note 109. 115 Should further comparisons be required, see examples in the work of the Maestro Espressionista di Santa Chiara, who depicts architectural bays fairly similar to H, but, once again, far less close than C2 (see Marino Bigaroni et al., La Basilica di S. Chiara in Assisi (Perugia, 1994), figs on pp. 203, 208–9); the vaulted ceiling of the building in Cavallini’s ‘Flagellation’ in Santa Maria Donnaregina, Naples (see Tomei, Cavallini, p. 128, fig. 111); or the bays of the vaulted loggia in the background of Duccio’s ‘Pact of Judas’. 116 The close correspondence between these two drawings has been noted before by at least two authors, although neither of them analyses the relationship in any depth, simply assuming the precedence of Assisi (see: Prandi, “Spunti,” p. 153, who refers to the architecture of the Honorius fresco as ‘una anticipazione dei coretti;’ and Todini, “Pittura del Duecento e del Trecento in Umbria,” p. 390, who observes that ‘la sala con volte a crociera della Predica ad Onorio si pone all’origine di una serie che comprende i famosi ‘coretti’ della Capella degli Scrovegni . . .’). 117 ‘un caso di puro illusionismo architettonico senza precedenti nella storia della

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shares their design, must copy them, and must, therefore, post-date the Arena Chapel. One further proof: it can be seen, once again, that the Assisi artist’s design relates not to the first, but to the second of the Arena Chapel designs, C2 (this is evident from the springing of the foremost rib and from the relative height of the window-lights). It therefore relates, like the lamp, A1, to a drawing whose genesis is traceable in the Arena Chapel. In light of this, it is hardly surprising that the controls employed above failed to match H and C2 very closely. The fresco of ‘St Francis Preaching before Honorius’ utilises a ‘perspective’ construction that was originated in the Arena Chapel and designed to be seen from an oblique angle, and this explains its rather odd effect. Without Giotto’s example it is to be doubted whether the artist of the Honorius fresco could have constructed nearly such a convincing vault; on the evidence of the hopelessly ‘vertical’ carpet in the painting, which makes the pope’s throne hover weightlessly in the air, he was not the most accomplished of early perspectival thinkers. His failure to recognise the spatial subtlety of the drawing he copied, therefore, is not surprising, nor his decision to draw a veil, in the form of a decidedly two-dimensional curtain, over the potentially complex architecture below, for which he had no model. The Honorius fresco is frequently cited for its perspectival precocity, but the spatial solecisms it includes are nearly always ignored—they simply do not fit the conventional account.118 There is, then, a very economic and straight-forward explanation for the detailed correspondences that have been adduced: the presence of a drawing at Assisi of Giotto’s left-hand fictive chamber and lamp (C2/P2). In logical terms, the argument now has the force of a visual syllogism: if a) the Padua and Assisi drawings are connected, and if b) the motifs were originated in the Arena Chapel, then c) the ‘Vision of the Thrones’ and all the subsequent St Francis Cycle scenes must post-date the Paduan frescoes. The argument depends, pittura italiana’ (Bellosi, Pecora, p. 55). Elsewhere, he refers to them as, ‘Un esperimento singolare . . .’ (ibid., p. 48). 118 Maginnis, Painting in the age of Giotto, pp. 108–9, exceptionally, draws attention to this disparity: ‘In scenes such as our familiar Francis Preaching Before Honorius III, we discover both an attempt at, and the initial difficulties of, depth composition . . . The seated figures create a rather irregular half-circle that does not exploit the rectangular shape of the room; even the pope’s throne is placed without reference to the chamber’s walls.’


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of course, upon the reliability of the two initial propositions. Accordingly, I have attempted to prove their reliability beyond reasonable doubt. Is it conceivable that the lamps and chambers in Assisi and Padua are entirely unconnected, that two practically identical designs were conceived independently by different artists—or, indeed, reinvented by the same artist? Is it conceivable (as conventional opinion would presumably have us believe) that Giotto—an original draughtsman—cobbled together his brilliant illusionistic chambers in the Arena Chapel from odd bits of the St Francis Cycle that just happened to fit the bill perfectly? Is it conceivable that in the Arena Chapel he copied a lost (and extraordinarily precocious) prototype, one designed, as it would have had to have been, for an identical setting? If these questions are answered in the negative, then the conclusion, however unexpected, holds. iii)

Further statistical proofs

Once again, though, the argument does not stop there. Many more antigraphological connections can be made between the St Francis Cycle and the Arena Chapel frescoes and each can be seen to imply the primacy of Padua. We may recall, first of all, the evidence of the ‘boy in the tree’ (Figs. 3 and 4), which hints at the same conclusion. As it happens, Fisher’s argument can be greatly strengthened, for in Scene 1 of the cycle, ‘The Homage of the Simple Man’ (Fig. 6), the simpleton himself adopts the same pose as the lad kneeling before Christ on the donkey in the same Arena Chapel composition. The ‘Homage of the Simple Man’ is another Franciscan episode with a typological relationship to the ‘Entry into Jerusalem,’ providing a ready reason for the Assisi artist to utilise a figure from this particular composition.119 Both this figure and the ‘boy in the

119 The typological connection is made clear in Bonaventure, The major legend, 1.1, p. 531. The connection between these two figures has been noted and interpreted in similar terms by Yukihiro Nomura: see Yukihiro Nomura, “Una proposta sulla datazione della Legenda di S. Francesco nella Basilica Superiore ad Assisi,” Art History (Tohoku University) 10 (1988), 14–27, pp. 16–17. This article clearly establishes the antigraphological link, illustrating useful ‘controls’ found in previous depictions of ‘The Entry into Jerusalem.’ Nomura argues, like myself, that the St Francis Cycle was completed after the Arena Chapel, although he restricts his argument to the latter part of the cycle (i.e., those scenes executed after Scene 19, ‘The Stigmatisation’), leaving open the possibility that it was initiated some years previously. I thank Donal Cooper for drawing my attention to this article.

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tree’ belong iconographically in the New Testament story, and together they provide good evidence that the Assisi artists were copying a previous model of this subject. Unless we are to believe, once again, that Giotto merely repeated himself in Padua, it would seem that the Arena Chapel composition provided the source. On its own, this argument approaches the standard of proof set by the Giuliano da Rimini connection. Two figures in the ‘Vision of the Fiery Chariot’ relate closely to two soldiers in Giotto’s ‘Crucifixion’. The friar who raises his arm to indicate the vision adopts the same pose as the centurion, whose act of spiritual recognition provides a ready prototype for the revelation of St Francis’ prophetic rôle—note, in particular, the similar drawing of the raised hand. Meanwhile, the friar bending towards his sleeping companions, his left hand held strangely closed, shares a similar pose with the soldier at right in the ‘Crucifixion,’ whose respective hand is perfectly suited to its action—clutching at Christ’s robe. The double correspondence within these two compositions is striking and, once again, significant.120 We know that Giotto was an original draughtsman. Is it likely, therefore, that his ‘Crucifixion’ was copied from a prototype that the Assisi painters also knew? Alternatively, is it likely that he copied these friars from the St Francis Cycle? Or should we accept that the Assisi masters, who apparently made free use of previous designs, had access also to this Arena Chapel composition? The examples can be multiplied even further. There is a clear correspondence between the figure of Pietro di Bernadone in the Assisi ‘Renunciation of worldly goods’ and that of the resurrected Christ in the Arena Chapel ‘Noli Me Tangere,’ a figure breathtakingly novel and expressive in its contrapposto; the friars seated on the ground with their backs to the spectator in the ‘Apparition at Arles,’ their legs very oddly truncated, look as if they were based upon the apostles seated at table in Giotto’s Arena Chapel ‘Pentecost,’ whose legs have plenty of space to dangle down unseen; the oddly diminutive ox and ass in the ‘Crib at Greccio’ (Mulvaney, Fig. 1) seem to be copied from a beautifully painted sheep and goat that Giotto included in ‘Joachim’s Dream;’ the right-hand cardinal in ‘St Francis 120

As a control, compare both scenes with the copy of the ‘Vision of the Fiery Chariot’ painted in S. Francesco, Rieti, where the two corresponding friars fail to match the two soldiers in the ‘Crucifixion’ (illustrated in Blume, Wandmalerei als Ordenspropaganda, fig. 19).


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Preaching Before Honorius III,’ his right arm emerging rather bizarrely from his stomach, is very closely related to the corresponding figure in the Arena Chapel ‘Christ among the Doctors,’ a christological event easily associated with this Franciscan episode.121 In every case, there are strong grounds for believing the Arena Chapel motifs to be original and the Assisi ones derivative. Space permitting, the list could be extended.122 iv)

Dating

By now, the primacy of the Arena Chapel has been proved by two separate means. We have a definite proof: the fact that the drawing utilised at Assisi, C2/P2, was originated at Padua, which is evident because a) it is site-specific and b) its genesis can be traced there. And we have a statistical proof: the plethora of antigraphological relationships that all point towards the dependency of Assisi upon Padua. These proofs, I would submit, exceed the standard set by White’s Giuliano da Rimini altarpiece connection, the yardstick against which such arguments may best be measured. It has therefore been firmly established, in my opinion, that the execution of the Arena Chapel should be taken as a terminus post quem for the majority of the St Francis Cycle. This allows the date of the Assisi frescoes to be determined with reasonable accuracy. The decoration of the Arena Chapel is now generally agreed to have been completed by 25 March 1305, though it may have been finished a little earlier.123 For practical purposes,

121 It may be noted that the scene of ‘Christ among the Doctors’ actually occurs as part of the New Testament cycle in the upper reaches of the same bay. 122 Further connections can be found with the following Arena Chapel compositions: ‘The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple,’ ‘The Virgin’s Return Home After her Marriage,’ and ‘The Flight into Egypt.’ Although Stubblebine’s thesis of a mid-fourteenth-century date for the frescoes is untenable, it should be noted that he makes the following interesting remark, with which I am in substantial agreement: ‘One inclines to the notion that the Assisi artists had drawings of various works to guide them, including details of the Arena Chapel frescoes’ (Stubblebine, Assisi and the rise of vernacular art, p. 23). 123 The arguments for the dating of the Arena Chapel frescoes are usefully summarised in Basile, Giotto: la capella degli Scrovegni, pp. 12–13. The principal factors are: a) the record of the chapel’s ‘dedicatio’ in 1303, thought to imply its architectural completion; b) the granting of an indulgence on 1 March 1304 to visitors to the chapel; c) a protest lodged by the nearby Eremitani in January 1305, complaining about the ostentation of the chapel; d) the record of a loan made to Enrico

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though, we may take 25 March 1305 as a new terminus post quem for the great majority of the St Francis scenes. The ‘Vision of the Thrones,’ at least, cannot have been executed much before this date. While no new evidence has yet been adduced regarding the cycle’s terminus ante quem, the argument from Giuliano da Rimini’s 1307 altarpiece, as I have said above, deserves to be credited, though it is valid only for those parts of the cycle preceding and including the ‘Stigmatisation.’ The time-span within which the bulk of the St Francis Cycle must have been produced has therefore been reduced to the two years 1305–6. Given the scale of the project, it is likely that it spanned both these years.124 Indeed, it is just possible that the later parts of the project (those scenes painted after Scene 22, ‘The Verification of the Stigmata’) were only completed in 1307 or slightly later: Zanardi has identified caesuras in the work after Scenes 22 and 25,125 both consistent with potential breaks in the project. The political problems of the Papacy in these years may well have affected the progress of artistic patronage in this papal basilica.

3)

Re-assessing the Circumstantial Evidence

How does this dating square with the various circumstantial arguments laid aside earlier? First of all, we may reconsider Vasari’s claim that Giotto was called to Assisi in the time of Fra Giovanni da Murro. I noted earlier that this information may well have been based upon knowledge of a local oral tradition or of a relevant document or source.

Scrovegni on 16 March 1305 of ‘panni’ for the consecration of his chapel; and e) the existence of illuminations in a local antiphonary datable to 1306 that appear to depend upon the Arena Chapel compositions. N.B. Zanardi has recently argued that Giotto’s work at Assisi may have been complete by 1 March 1304, rather earlier than generally supposed (Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 197–198). 124 Cf. Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, p. 47: ‘Io credo che il tempo minimo necessario alla esecuzione degli affreschi . . . si possa calcolare intorno ai due anni;’ and Boskovits, “Celebrazione,” p. 207: ‘con ogni probabilità non richiese più di due o al massimo tre anni.’ Zanardi has calculated the time necessary as a year and a half to two years (see Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, pp. 19–20), based upon the number of giornate (546). It should be noted, however, that he has recently reconsidered this evidence, raising the possibility that the entire cycle was executed in a matter of months (see Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 100–102). 125 Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, pp. 22–23.


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Considering the latter possibility first, there may be significance in the precise wording of Vasari’s statement: he does not actually say that Giotto worked at Assisi when Fra Giovanni da Murro was General of the Order, but that he was called there at that time.126 Since Giotto’s workshop drawings appear to have arrived in Assisi in early 1305, soon after Fra Giovanni left office, it may be that the artist was summoned to Assisi (for reasons to be discussed) while working on the Arena Chapel in 1303–4, i.e. when Fra Giovanni was still Vicar of the Order. It is conceivable that Vasari’s careful wording may accurately record some information to this effect. Alternatively, if Vasari’s account repeats a local oral tradition, a different (and, perhaps, more likely) interpretation suggests itself. In the light of the arguments presented above, it would now seem sensible to suppose that the decoration of much of the nave, including the work of the Isaac Master and his associates (who may well have had a previous professional association with Giotto), was undertaken during the Generalship of Fra Giovanni, and later generations, perhaps aware of this fact and associating Giotto with the St Francis scenes along the lowest register, may well have applied this vague chronological indicator to Giotto’s sojourn at Assisi.127 Why might Giotto have been called to Assisi at this time? A ready explanation offers itself in the decoration of the Lower Church. There is a document of 9 January 1309 that records Giotto’s repayment of a loan obtained in Assisi some time before, probably in 1307–8— the only documentary evidence we have, in fact, regarding Giotto’s presence in Assisi.128 It would seem altogether likely that Giotto and his workshop arrived in Assisi at the beginning of 1305 (or possibly a few months earlier), having been summoned by Fra Giovanni some time before, in order to carry out the great programme of fresco

126

See above, note 29. Regarding Ludovico da Pietralunga’s failure to repeat Vasari’s information c. 1570 (followed by others), it is not evident that this should be taken as a criticism of the Aretine’s text, as Murray, “Notes,” pp. 66–7, proposes, since arguments ex silentio should always be regarded warily. If it were, however, the current theory would remain unaffected: Ludovico may have been aware that Giotto’s work at Assisi was actually carried out several years after Fra Giovanni had left office. 128 See Valentino Martinelli, “Un documento per Giotto ad Assisi,” Storia dell’arte 19 (1973), 193–208; Lorraine Schwartz, The Fresco Decoration of the Magdalen Chapel in the Basilica of St Francis at Assisi, Ph.D., Indiana University (1980), pp. 139–45; and Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 189–93. 127

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decoration in the lower basilica.129 This probably included the painting of the north transept, the crossing, the apse and possibly also the Magdalen Chapel (cf. Robson, Figs. 2–8, 12–14).130 All of this may have occupied the master and his workshop for several years, although the general absence of Giotto’s hand in the execution of the works implies that he may well have been employed on other projects elsewhere at the same time, leaving responsibility for most of the actual painting in the hands of associates. Critics who prefer to stick with a later dating for the majority of these frescoes may decide that he was engaged only on the painting of the Magdalen chapel at this time, which is now generally related to the document of January 1309, although it then becomes difficult, in the context of the present argument, to explain the apparently short period of the loan.131 For the present argument, of course, the precise nature 129 As Vicar of the Order, Fra Giovanni would presumably have had responsibility for the decoration of the Lower Church, but not for the papal basilica above. Both Murray, “Notes,” p. 70, and Bellosi, Pecora, p. 37, note 39, have emphasised this point, since it helps break the link forged by Vasari between Fra Giovanni and the St Francis Cycle. But if the record of Fra Giovanni’s summons is related, instead, to the projected redecoration of the Lower Church, then the information can, perhaps, be reconciled with the pictorial evidence. Zanardi has come to the same conclusion: ‘Nulla allora vieta che Giovanni da Murro possa aver chiamato Giotto ad Assisi anche tra il 1296 e il 1312: ad esempio intorno al 1305 (e magari d’accordo con Napoleone Orsini), per fargli eseguire la decorazione della basilica che resterà giustamente nota in tutte le fonti: quella della chiesa inferiore’ (Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 215–16). 130 Current opinion tends to favour a date in the second half of the first decade of the fourteenth century for the Giottesque frescoes in the north transept and crossing of the Lower Church (see, e.g., d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 222; and Elvio Lunghi, The basilica of St Francis in Assisi (Florence, 1996), pp. 116–17), though others favour a date in the second decade (e.g., Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, p. 104; and Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto,” in Tartuferi, ed., Giotto: bilancio critico, 55–73, p. 70). I believe it is sensible to regard the decoration of the crossing as having been undertaken during the same campaign of work as the Infancy Cycle. The St Nicholas Chapel—which displays no knowledge of the Paduan compositions—is now generally dated c. 1300, and at any rate, before 1307 (see, e.g., d’Arcais, Giotto, pp. 219–222). The Magdalen Chapel is now usually dated before 1309, on the basis of the document just mentioned (see: Schwartz, The Fresco Decoration of the Magdalen Chapel, p. 141; Martinelli, “Un documento per Giotto ad Assisi,” p. 197; Lunghi, The basilica of St Francis, p. 116; and Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto,” p. 69), though not by all (see d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 272). 131 Martinelli, “Un documento per Giotto ad Assisi,” p. 197, concludes that the document records a short-term loan, taken out no earlier than 1307, probably used to help pay for materials and salaries. If Giotto arrived in Assisi in 1305, however, as the antigraphological evidence would suggest, his period of employment there would have begun two years before the loan was contracted. The Magdalen chapel alone can hardly have occupied him for more than a year. It would seem, therefore, that he must have been engaged on a larger project.


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of Giotto’s employment at Assisi during the middle of the first decade of the century is not important. It is sufficient to note that the evidence adduced above of Arena Chapel designs being present at Assisi in the years 1305–6 is quite compatible with the documented fact that Giotto was in Assisi in the period shortly before January 1309 and can be related to the presence in the Lower Church of a great quantity of Giottesque painting, some of which makes plentiful use of the Paduan compositions. Arriving in Assisi in 1305, Giotto and his workshop would have joined the masters and workshops active already in the nave of the Upper Church. The process of collaboration that then seems to have occurred, with the painters in the Upper Church freely employing Giotto’s designs, provokes numerous questions regarding the nature of workshop practice, associations between independent masters and the contemporary conception of artistic individuality. It may be that Giotto had a previous acquaintance with the painters in the nave, and this may help account for the extensive workshop co-operation that can be discerned. Of course, this brings us to the traditional attribution of the St Francis Cycle to Giotto, the shibboleth that might seem irredeemably violated by the arguments presented here. Does the evidence of the lamps and the fictive wall-tombs vindicate the separatisti and show the followers of Vasari to have been misguided in their adherence to the traditional attribution? As so often, the truth, I believe, lies somewhere in between. While everyone agrees on stylistic grounds that dating the major part of the St Francis Cycle 1305–6 would rule out the possibility of Giotto’s hand having wielded the brush, the complexity of the workshop interactions that appear to have taken place cautions against too rigorous a division of authorship. It has been demonstrated that Giotto’s Arena Chapel designs were used by the painters in the Upper Church; ironically, it has long been argued by the separatisti that Giotto could claim authorship of a panel based on his design but not actually executed by him.132 How far does this differ from him lending his designs to fellow practitioners,

132

This is insisted upon, for instance, by White, Art and architecture, p. 341: ‘. . . Giotto signed those major products of his workshop which he had largely not himself painted. These were the works that were in need of the protection of a signature to prove their provenance.’ See also Maginnis, pp. 97–8; and Tomei, 1998, p. 16.

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for them to adapt freely? We enter a grey area of attribution. And if he was so generous with his workshop drawings, could he also have lent a hand in devising completely new compositions, such as the celebrated and unprecedented setting for the ‘Crib at Greccio’ (Mulvaney, Fig. 1)? Would competitive instincts or the terms of employment have prevented such active collaboration? Or would it have been a natural consequence of the intimate working conditions? Only very careful stylistic analysis can offer any hope of deciding such matters, but the close involvement of the Assisi masters with Giotto and his workshop in the immediate aftermath of the Arena Chapel begins to explain the difficulty scholars have had in the past when attempting either to reconcile the styles at Assisi and Padua or to differentiate between them. The old ‘Giotto, non-Giotto’ debate, then, is simply framed in the wrong terms. The Assisi Problem had its origin in the nineteenth century in the development of an insufficiently subtle attributional methodology that saw each fresco (and even each fresco cycle) as the product of a unique imagination. On this assumption, the traditionalists founded their belief that, if the St Francis Cycle was by Giotto, as Vasari testified, it must have been an early work, its relative ‘inadequacies’ with respect to the Arena Chapel explicable as the result of the artist’s immaturity. On this assumption, too, the separatisti applied their strict stylistic criteria too rigorously, ignoring the potential complexities of workshop interactions. Both sides therefore, proceeded initially from an unrealistic view of the period’s terms of production, establishing attributional paradigms that survived the increasing awareness of the collaborative nature of the frescoes’ creation. Major progress has recently been made in the investigation of workshop practices, and, thanks largely to Zanardi’s study of the nave decoration of the Upper Church, we can now gain a clearer conception not only of the interactions between masters and assistants, but also of the associations formed between independent masters. 133 A complex understanding of this latter phenomenon is

133 See Bruno Zanardi, “L’organizzazione del cantiere,” in Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, 19–58; and Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini. The current understanding is clearly stated by Basile, Giotto: le storie francescane, p. 15: ‘Un attenzione più adeguata a problemi di questo tipo ha portato invece a ritenere possibile, anzi assolutamente normale, quella che oggi chiameremmo un’associazione temporanea di imprese fra membri e botteghe anche di diversa formazione . . .’


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prerequisite, I believe, for understanding an enterprise such as the St Francis Cycle, which is characterised by a pronounced heterogeneity.134 As the antigraphological connections demonstrate, this heterogeneity is largely due to an encounter between the developed Roman/Florentine style and Giotto’s most recent innovations in Padua. Once the assumption that Giotto could not have worked on the cycle in any capacity after 1303–4 is questioned, it becomes possible to reconcile the two opposing paradigms, to bridge the gap between the separatisti and the integrazionisti. The cycle is Giotto and non-Giotto: that is the paradoxical conclusion that begins to emerge from the evidence presented here. The way ahead lies in attempting to discern in detail the pattern of this synthesis.135 It should be added that it is within this context, too, that we should seek to understand those other works linked stylistically to the St Francis Cycle and long attached to Giotto’s name: the S. Giorgio alla Costa Madonna,136 the Santa Maria Novella Crucifix,137 and, of course, the so-called ‘prova inoppugnabile’ of Giotto’s authorship of the St Francis Cycle—the signed panel of the ‘Stigmatisation’ now in the Louvre.138 Whether or not these paintings are all principally by the same hand, they should probably be understood as works produced by Giotto in collaboration with important associates. What of the other circumstantial arguments identified at the beginning? Several can now be classified as irrelevant to the date of the St Francis Cycle. The beard of St Francis is not as useful an indicator of chronology as has been claimed. The Assisi St Francis frescoes, like a number of other Conventual images of the early fourteenth

134 Another major monument whose heterogeneous style, I believe, should be understood in similar terms is Duccio’s Maestà painted for Siena Cathedral (see, for the moment, de Wesselow, The wall of the Mappamondo, pp. 188–91). I should say, however, that I do not agree with either the methods or conclusions of Stubblebine’s analysis of the Maestà (for which, see James Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and his school (Princeton, 1979), pp. 11–13, 39–45). 135 Recently, Maginnis—a separatist—has stressed that, in his opinion, the Ognissanti Madonna can be seen to effect a rapprochement between the Arena Chapel and the Assisi frescoes (see Maginnis, Painting in the age of Giotto, pp. 87–92, 97–99). His approach is eminently sensible. 136 See Tartuferi, ed., Giotto: bilancio critico, pp. 104–106; d’Arcais, Giotto, pp. 105–10; and Smart, The Assisi Problem, pp. 81–82. 137 See Marco Ciatti and Max Seidel, eds, Giotto: la croce di Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 2001; d’Arcais, Giotto, pp. 90–105; Smart, The Assisi Problem, pp. 74–81; and White, Art and architecture, p. 343. 138 See d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 121; and Gardner, “The Louvre ‘Stigmatisation.’”

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century, show St Francis with a beard: it is at present wholly unclear whether or not this was intended to bear some form of ideological significance. Similarly, the fact that the saint is consistently shown without sandals might seem a sure concession to Spiritual values, until one notices that his companions are all conspicuously shod.139 If conflicting signals such as these are to be convincingly interpreted, they will have to be read against Franciscan and papal politics of the years c. 1305–6 and within the iconographic programme of the nave decoration as a whole. Bellosi’s history of fashion c. 1283–1305, neither methodologically secure nor supported by sufficient evidence, would appear to be somewhat inaccurate. Despite the interest that Nicholas IV manifested in the decoration of the basilica, it would seem that his patronage cannot be invoked as a straight-forward solution to the dating of the St Francis Cycle (though this does not necessarily mean that he was unconnected to the creation of the frescoes, as I shall discuss below). The general stylistic arguments, which tend towards a date for the frescoes c. 1300, perform quite well, as might be expected, oscillating on either side of a point that is within a few years of the date established here. The glorious depiction of the four Doctors of the Church in the vault of the nave might now be seen as a response to their official celebration, but the connection still cannot be definitely affirmed. The omission of the upper storey of the tower of the Palazzo Comunale in the ‘Homage of the Simple Man,’ a fresco that was probably executed a little while after the building work was finished, should be attributed to either of the following factors: indifference on the part of the painter and/or his ecclesiastical patrons to the precise form of the local communal buildings (concordant with the inaccurate rendering of the temple); or compositional considerations that made a relatively low tower preferable. 139 On the contentious issue of Franciscan footwear, see David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans (Pennsylvania, 2001), pp. 119–20. The Conventual significance of the friars wearing sandals in the Upper Church cycle is stressed by Frugoni in Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, p. 141. While this would seem a valid observation, it may be noted that St Francis is twice shown wearing sandals in an early fourteenth-century tabernacle in the Moravian Gallery, Brno, a work interpreted by Olga Pujmanova as representing Spiritual concerns (see Olga Pujmanova, “Robert of Anjou’s unknown tabernacle in Brno,” Burlington Magazine 121 (1979), 483–91). Pujmanova’s Spiritual interpretation, though, might be felt to be compromised by this significant sartorial detail. I thank William Cook for drawing my attention to this article.


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Conclusion: The St Francis Cycle within the Upper Church Programme Considering the significance of the ‘Assisi Problem’ a quarter of a century ago, Bruce Cole came to the following conclusion: ‘The problem is important not only for Giotto but also for the history of art, for as a classical methodological set piece it forces the art historian to examine the cycle from every angle and continually to question the logic of his approach.’140 The profusion of incommensurate critical angles, though, is itself a major difficulty to be overcome. Controversies such as the ‘Assisi Problem’ remain intractable as long as different lines of argument are confused and the epistemological foundations of each are left unexamined.141 A logical approach requires that separate forms of enquiry be analysed, as far as possible, in isolation; only then should they be reintegrated with one another in an attempt to produce a holistic explanation. The principal requirement in the present case is to be able to investigate the historical significance of the St Francis Cycle separately from the question of its authorship. This can only be achieved once the date of the cycle is established, as far as possible, by independent means. Having attempted here to achieve this circumscribed aim, I shall turn to the related issues of iconography, patronage and authorship in the future. For the moment, a few closing comments may help confirm the historical plausibility of my account. I have dated the start of the St Francis Cycle to early 1305, during the papal interregnum that preceded the reign of Clement V and the beginning of the papacy’s ‘captivity’ in France. This might seem an unlikely moment for the commissioning of a set of splendid frescoes in the papal basilica in Assisi. However, it is essential that the St Francis Cycle be considered not as an isolated commission but as an integral part of the nave decoration as a whole. Beginning with Torriti’s scene of ‘The Creation’ and continuing through the lives of representative Old Testament patriarchs and the life of Christ,

140

Cole, Giotto and Florentine painting, p. 160. Cf. the following observation made by Charles Harrison in a useful survey of the debate: ‘Various assumptions—concerning, respectively, the date of Giotto’s birth, the dating of the St Francis Cycle, the authorship of the cycle and the nature of the development of Giotto’s style—may all appear to support one another, when in fact none of them has been independently established and tested’ (Charles Harrison, “Giotto and the rise of painting,” in Diana Norman, ed., Siena, Florence and Padua: art society and religion 1280–1400, 2 (London, 1995), 73–95, p. 89). 141

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the nave of S. Francesco narrated a theological history of the world which reached its climax, for the Franciscan Order, in the life of the ‘Poverello.’ Furthermore, as others have emphasised,142 the St Francis Cycle is carefully related to the biblical cycles above, so that one is invited to read them in unison. There is thus every reason to suppose that the St Francis Cycle was envisaged from the start as the culmination of the nave programme, in which case, its commencement in 1305 should be regarded as no more than a chronological accident, the most important date from the point-of-view of the work’s patronage being the initiation of the nave programme itself. Given the vast scale of the project and the succession of different capomaestri, indicative of a discontinuous campaign, this should almost certainly be back-dated to the Duecento. Relevant to this issue is the document of 1311–12, mentioned earlier, that records Nicholas IV’s instigation of a decorative programme in the church at Assisi. The citation occurs as part of a tract, Religiosi viri, composed on behalf of the Franciscan establishment in response to criticisms of the Order made by Ubertino da Casale, chief spokesman for the Spirituals.143 Perhaps the most important historical datum yet uncovered regarding the ‘Assisi Problem,’ this new source needs to be considered carefully in relation to the scenario I am developing here. The passage reads as follows: . . . nec vidimus in ecclesiis fratrum sumptuositatem magnam picturarum nisi in ecclesia Assisii, quas picturas dominus Nicolaus IV fieri precepit propter reverentiam Sancti, cuius reliquie iacent ibidem. . . . nor have we seen in the churches of the friars a great sumptuousness of pictures, except in the church at Assisi; and lord Nicholas IV ordered these pictures to be made out of reverence for the saint, whose relics lie there.144

142 See, e.g., Mitchell, “The imagery of the Upper Church,” esp. p. 122; Oertel, Early Italian painting, pp. 64–65; d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 33; and Silvia Romano, La basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi: pittori, botteghe, strategie narrative (Rome, 2001), pp. 182–88. 143 On the Council of Vienne, see Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 111–58; and John Moorman, A history of the Franciscan Order (Oxford, 1968), pp. 201–4. 144 Rome, Archivio del Collegio di S. Isidoro, codex 1/146, fol. 263r. See Cooper and Robson, “Pope Nicholas IV,” pp. 32–33 (with a slightly different translation); and Ferdinand Delorme, “Notice et extraits d’un manuscrit franciscain,” Collectanea franciscana 15 (1945), 5–91, p. 78.


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As has been argued by Cooper and Robson, it is likely that the authors of the document were referring predominantly to the Upper Church at Assisi, since this was subject to papal patronage.145 Within the Upper Church, however, it is uncertain to which area of painting the document refers. There are, in my view, two alternative interpretations that are particularly worth considering. On the one hand, it is possible that the authors of the tract had in mind the extraordinarily splendid effect produced by the decoration of the entire nave, an integrated pictorial scheme that would have been viewed—and, more importantly in this context, remembered—as a single, overwhelming spectacle.146 Since most scholars now tend to date the commencement of the nave programme to the reign of Nicholas IV, this might seem an attractive solution, though, in the context of the current argument, it implies a subsequent period of rather slow progress. Alternatively, the document might be thought to refer to the ‘great sumptuousness of pictures’ in the entire basilica. Just as splendid as the nave programme was the wholesale decoration of the apse and transepts. Not only did murals cover every available surface at this end of the church, but they were also extremely lavish, with highly elaborate border patterns and extensive use of gold leaf.147 Nothing like this display existed in any other Franciscan church,148 and it would seem historically plausible to 145

Cooper and Robson, “Pope Nicholas IV,” p. 33. I do not myself think there is any justification for interpreting the Religiosi viri passage as a reference to the St Francis Cycle alone (cf. ibid., pp. 33–34). The specific clause in question is designed to justify an exceptional decorative scheme against Ubertino’s charge regarding ‘pictorial curiosities’ in Franciscan churches. If ‘what was unusual at Assisi was the complete and sumptuous painted decoration of the nave’ (ibid., p. 33), then it was presumably this unique visual display that needed justifying by association with the Franciscan Pope. Were the document referring merely to the St Francis Cycle, then the vast majority of painting in the nave (and choir and transepts) of the Upper Church—created in apparent contravention of the constitutions of Narbonne—would have been left undefended in the face of Spiritual censorship. The comment that the pictures were commissioned ‘out of reverence for the saint’ cannot, in my view, be taken as evidence for their subjectmatter: any pictorial scheme made to aggrandise the shrine of St Francis would naturally have been thought of in these terms, especially if it raised the level of decoration in S. Francesco to that found in the great Roman basilicas. And the fact that St Francis appears conspicuously in the Deësis vault of the Upper Church would seem to prove that, from its inception, the nave programme, at least, was conceived explicitly in his honour. 147 It should be noted that, besides using gold for the haloes (of which there were very many), Cimabue also applied gold leaf as a ground in the vault of the Evangelists. 148 Cooper and Robson, “Pope Nicholas IV,” p. 33, note that, ‘By 1311–12 many 146

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attribute its unique conception to the Franciscan Pope, Nicholas IV, a man who sponsored similarly grandiose schemes in two Roman basilicas, S. Giovanni in Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore.149 Of course, this would imply a relatively late dating for the work at Assisi of the so-called ‘Northern Master’ and Cimabue (e.g. Lavin, Figs. 1 and 9). Opinion has recently tended to see Cimabue’s work as belonging to the pontificate of the Orsini Pope, Nicholas III (1277–80);150 however, this chronology is based upon the argument that Cimabue painted the Orsini arms on the Palazzo Senatoriale in his famous depiction of Italy in the vault of St Mark in order to honour Nicholas’ election as senator of Rome, an argument that is not necessarily convincing, since it is possible that this detail merely records the actual façade decoration of the palace in the later thirteenth century (the detail is, in any case, practically invisible from the floor).151 There is, therefore, no conclusive evidence for dating Cimabue’s murals to the late 1270s. Indeed, following the lead of Cesare Brandi, Bellosi has repeatedly argued that they should be dated instead to the pontificate of Nicholas IV.152 Stylistically, there is no reason why this should not be so; nor is a date of c.1290 inherently implausible for the work of the ‘Northern Master.’153 The Religiosi viri pasFranciscan churches possessed elaborate fresco cycles at their east ends . . .,’ citing the fresco-cycle of St Francis’ life in the apse of S. Francesco, Rieti. The dating of these frescoes, however, is dependent upon that of the St Francis Cycle in Assisi, which they copy; the current argument suggests that they should probably be dated no earlier than the second decade of the Trecento. Other Franciscan churches certainly housed fresco-cycles in their east ends by this date (e.g., Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome; The Santo, Padua; and S. Francesco, Gubbio), but at none of these sites did the scale and splendour of the work approach that in the choir and transepts of the Upper Church at Assisi. Nor did the Order feel it could be criticised for such schemes, since they were funded privately, unlike the Upper Church programme (for this defence, see Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans, p. 218). 149 On Nicholas’ patronage of S. Giovanni in Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore, see Gardner, “Pope Nicholas IV.” 150 See, e.g., White, Art and architecture, pp. 190–98; Lunghi, The basilica of St Francis, p. 28; and Romano, La basilica di San Francesco, p. 188. 151 See Luciano Bellosi, Cimabue, trans. Alexandra Bonfante-Warren, Frank Dabell, and Jay Hyams (New York, 1998), pp. 161–2. He argues (citing Augusta Monferini, ‘L’Apocalisse di Cimabue’, Commentari 17 (1966), 25–55, pp. 39–40) that the depiction of the Orsini arms is merely a topographically accurate detail, reflecting their actual presence on the façade of the senatorial palace after 1278. Cf. also White, Art and architecture, p. 191: ‘. . . a minute detail of this kind, which is virtually invisible from the ground, may be entirely without chronological or other significance.’ 152 See Cesare Brandi, Duccio (Florence, 1951), pp. 127–32; Bellosi, Pecora, pp. 149–202; and idem, Cimabue, pp. 159–62. 153 The work of the ‘Northern Master’ is usually dated no later than 1280 (for


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sage, then, might be interpreted as providing evidence that the entire decoration of the Upper Church, from the highest reaches of the right transept to the lowest register of the nave, was initiated by Nicholas IV—an argument that would coincide with the view that it was he who originally conceived the entire decorative scheme.154 In this case, every square inch of mural painting in the basilica would have been justified by association with the revered Franciscan Pope.155 Whichever of these interpretations is preferred, it is clear that Nicholas’ name is invoked by the authors of the tract in order to justify an otherwise problematic pictorial programme. It is worth briefly considering the controversy of 1309–12 from the other side— that is, from the point-of-view of Ubertino da Casale. The decorative schemes at Assisi were a unique undertaking, as the authors of Religiosi viri make clear, and it was undoubtedly these ‘pictorial curiosities,’ in particular, that so exercised Ubertino. In a rejoinder to Religiosi viri, Ubertino refers specifically to the church at Assisi as an example of ‘scandalous and monstrous’ minorite architecture.156 Moreover, he condemns such ‘vanities’ not only in his 1310–12 criticisms of the Order, but also, most famously, in his Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu of 1305, written immediately after a visit to nearby Perugia.157 The chronology of his concern makes sense, I believe, in relation to the theory that artists were still working in the nave of the Upper Church during the first decade of the Trecento. Surely, it was because a summary of previous opinions, see Paul Binski, “How Northern was the Northern Master at Assisi?,” Proceedings of the British Academy 117 (2002), 73–138, p. 78), though Bellosi, Cimabue, p. 85, places them in the 1280s. However, the most thorough recent study of the sources of the ‘Northern Master’ indicates that ‘there is no reason in stylistic terms why the Northern Master could not have worked at Assisi in the 1280s or even 1290s . . .’ (Binski, “How Northern,” p. 77). 154 For this argument, see Mitchell, “The imagery of the Upper Church,” pp. 130–32; Bellosi, Cimabue, pp. 159–61; idem, Pecora, pp. 25–30, 149–202; and Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 211–13. 155 It is possible that the appeal to the authority of Nicholas IV was also being used to justify the painting of the transepts in the Lower Church; although not commenced until the Trecento, this scheme could have been envisaged as part of the same overall programme of decoration. It is worth noting in this regard that the two large Crucifixions in the Lower Church transepts directly parallel those by Cimabue in the Upper Church. 156 Quoted in Smart, The Assisi Problem, p. 6. 157 Ubertino da Casale, Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu, ed. Charles Davis (Turin, 1961). On this work, see: Smart, The Assisi Problem, p. 5; and Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 96–100.

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the Assisi scheme was ongoing in 1305—and perhaps only very recently finished in 1310—that Ubertino railed against it; his criticisms would have borne added force because of the paradoxically lavish celebration of the ‘Poverello’ that was simultaneously taking shape in S. Francesco. In these circumstances, the (presumably trustworthy) memory that it was Nicholas IV who had ordered the programme of decoration to be made would have been a vital piece of propaganda in the establishment’s argument with the Spirituals. His moral authority remained important long after his death, and so his posthumous patronage could be used to defend the continuing campaign of decoration against Spiritual attacks. How much of the decoration Nicholas himself may actually have witnessed remains uncertain. However, in light of the recently unearthed Religiosi viri reference and taking account also of the late dating of the St Francis Cycle established here, the dating of the whole Upper Church programme should, perhaps, be reviewed. As I have indicated, two separate scenarios seem plausible. It is possible that Nicholas IV inherited a church whose choir and transepts were already decorated and that he then initiated the nave programme, which progressed rather slowly until its eventual completion in the fourteenth century. The adoption of such a scenario results in minimal disturbance to conventional accounts of the decorative chronology of the Upper Church, and for this reason many may regard it as preferable. But it is also possible that it was under Nicholas’ reign that the decoration of the west end was begun by the northern-influenced painters, whose style is analogous, as several scholars have pointed out, to the Gothicizing idiom of the enamels on the famous chalice that he presented to the convent at Assisi.158 If so, he presumably saw Cimabue’s work underway, as

158

See Binski, “How Northern,” pp. 137–8; Elisabetta Cioni, “Guccio di Mannaia e l’esperienza del gotico transalpino,” in Valentino Pace and Martina Bagnoli, eds, Il Gotico europeo in Italia (Naples, 1994), 311–23, at p. 316; and Luciano Bellosi, “Il pittore oltremontano di Assisi, il Gotico a Siena e la formazione di Simone Martini,” in Simone Martini: atti del convegno (Florence, 1988), 39–47, at pp. 42–43. Incidentally, Blume, Wandmalerei als Ordenspropaganda, p. 168, has sought to connect the image of the ‘Stigmatisation’ on Guccio’s chalice (ibid., fig. 265) to the representation of this episode in the Upper Church, arguing that the enamel copies the fresco and thus provides a terminus ante quem of 1292 for the St Francis Cycle. This argument is not convincing, since the pose of the figure is quite distinct and is more nearly related to the stigmatised St Francis in one of the windows of the Upper Church (for which, see Cook, Images of St Francis, p. 46).


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well—at any rate, these frescoes were almost certainly substantially complete by 1296, the date of a graffito carved into the plaster of the apse at gallery level.159 Continuing with this hypothesis, Jacopo Torriti may have arrived in Assisi sometime after 1296, having completed the mosaics for the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore and the tomb of Boniface VIII,160 to be eventually succeeded by the Isaac Master and the other painters of the nave, with the St Francis Cycle being begun in 1305, the only absolute date that it is possible to deduce. According to this approximate chronology, then, it would have taken the painters of the Upper Church 15–20 years to fulfil the task set them by Nicholas IV—‘propter reverentiam Sancti.’ This second scenario involves a time-scale in accord with most current estimates, which place Cimabue’s work in the late 1270s and the St Francis Cycle somewhere in the 1290s, a similar span of years. The first scenario results in a far more protracted period of decoration—30 years or more—though this should not necessarily be regarded as a problem. While recent analyses have emphasised the speed with which such work could be carried out,161 it is important to remember that the whole project was evidently undertaken in a series of separate campaigns headed by different capomaestri, and it is obviously impossible to know how long the intervals were between these campaigns. Political, economic and even personal factors (e.g., the availability of an artist) may well have delayed work in the Upper

159 For this graffito, see Giuseppe Marchini, Le vetrate dell’Umbria, (Corpus vitrearum medii aevi) 1 (Rome, 1973), p. 18, plate CLXXXIV, 4. 160 Scholars now generally date Torriti’s activity at Assisi to the reign of Nicholas IV (e.g., Tomei, Torriti, pp. 55–56; White, Art and architecture, p. 199; and Romano, La basilica di San Francesco, p. 188). It should be emphasised, however, that the attribution of the Assisi frescoes to Torriti is based upon their extremely close stylistic relation to his mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore, completed in 1296. Given the paucity of his surviving oeuvre (the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaic is the only surviving documented work of his in its original condition), it is difficult to decide on purely stylistic grounds, whether the Assisi frescoes predate or post-date this work. The current consensus merely derives from the orthodox belief that the St Francis Cycle should be dated to the 1290s, which would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Torriti to have begun the nave programme after 1296. 161 See Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, p. 215; and Romano, La basilica di San Francesco, p. 188. So little is known, however, of workshop procedures and organisation, and so much depends upon guessing the amount of time not actually spent plastering the wall, that it is perfectly reasonable to suppose any such estimate to be somewhat inaccurate. Zanardi himself cautions against placing too much confidence in his own estimate (Zanardi, Zeri and Frugoni, Il cantiere di Giotto, pp. 19–20).

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Church considerably, perhaps by years at a time.162 It is perfectly possible, for instance, that the scheme fell into abeyance during the two-year papal interregnum that followed the death of Nicholas IV in April 1292. Raymond Gaufridi, then Minister General of the Order and sympathetic to the Spirituals, would have had neither the authority nor (presumably) the inclination to proceed with Nicholas’ project, and Celestine V, elected in July 1294, was hardly the man to promote such an undertaking. It may not have been until Boniface VIII came to power in December 1295 that the Nicholine plan for the Upper Church was resumed. In 1296 Boniface issued two Bulls granting indulgences to pilgrims to S. Francesco, which must have ensured sufficient revenue for the decoration of the basilica.163 Boskovits has already suggested that these might have helped pay for the painting of the St Francis Cycle;164 more generally, they could have helped finance the larger decorative scheme of which the St Francis Cycle was a part. In the same year, 1296, Fra Giovanni da Murro became Minister General of the Order, the man whom Vasari credited with calling Giotto to Assisi—an apparent oral tradition that argues for his active participation in, and promotion of, the decorative scheme in the basilica. A strong opponent of the Spirituals, unlike his predecessor, he would certainly have looked favourably upon the grand embellishment of the Upper Church and may well have helped supervise it. Thus, both Nicholas IV and Fra Giovanni da Murro, the two men most frequently associated on historical grounds with the patronage of the St Francis Cycle, may, at different stages, have had a hand in its design, though neither, it seems, oversaw its eventual execution. In this way two circumstantial arguments that are generally thought to be in conflict with one another can be reconciled. Just as we have learnt to see the St Francis Cycle as the product of

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It is worth recalling, by way of comparison, current estimates of the amount of time taken to fresco the much smaller area of the Lower Church transept: roughly ten years are generally supposed to have elapsed from the beginning of the Giottesque work in the north transept in the first decade of the Trecento to the completion of Pietro Lorenzetti’s Passion Cycle in the second decade (cf. d’Arcais, Giotto, pp. 222, 304). Consider also the political vicissitudes that beset the scheme of decoration initiated by Nicholas IV at Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. After his death the programme was continued by Giacomo Colonna, only to be abandoned, before the painting of the right transept, in 1297, when the Colonna were expelled from Rome (see Gardner, “Pope Nicholas IV,” p. 12). In this case, work was never resumed. 163 For these Bulls, see Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 213–14. 164 See above, note 25.


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an evolving cantiere of painters, rather than the creation of a single artist, so we may also learn to treat it as the product of a highly complex succession of patronage.165 The St Francis Cycle, then, was probably conceived during the final years of the Duecento—perhaps by Nicholas IV himself—as the third and final part of an unprecedented scheme of mural decoration designed to glorify both the Church and the Franciscan Order, and it is primarily in this context that its commissioning should be understood. Though by the time the frescoes were actually painted c.1305–6 the political situation of the papacy had deteriorated (and internal divisions within the Franciscan Order had become critical), the executants of the cycle were bound to continue the scheme as originally planned. In any case, the iconography of the cycle and its eschatological emphasis would have been as relevant in the early years of the fourteenth century as they had been fifteen years before. The third in a Trinity of fresco cycles, to be experienced together and understood as a single holy narrative, the St Francis Cycle bore an eternal, theological meaning that transcended the immediate world of human politics into which it was born.

165 Besides Nicholas IV, Boniface VIII and Giovanni da Murro, Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta may well have played a rôle in devising and developing the nave programme (see Lunghi, The basilica of St Francis, pp. 56–57; Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini, pp. 228–29; and Cooper and Robson, “Pope Nicholas IV,” p. 32). If my chronology is correct, Benedict XI, Clement V and Gonsalvo da Valboa may all have been consulted regarding the completion of the project, as well.

THE BEHOLDER AS WITNESS: THE CRIB AT GRECCIO FROM THE UPPER CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO, ASSISI AND FRANCISCAN INFLUENCE ON LATE MEDIEVAL ART IN ITALY Beth A. Mulvaney

In his guide to meditation, Ugo Panciera, the late thirteenth-century author of a treatise on mental activity, says that in order to attain an elevated level of meditation and contemplation, the imagination must be used to summon images so vibrant that they are experienced by the bodily senses. Explaining further, he says that the imagination creates these images in stages: . . . When the mind first begins to think about Christ, he appears to the mind and imagination in written form. He next appears as an outline. In the third stage he appears as an outline with shading; in the fourth stage, tinted with colors and flesh tones; and in the fifth state he appears in the flesh and fully rounded.

This passage of Ugo Panciera’s, cited by Chiara Frugoni in her article on female mystics and their visions,1 provides suggestive evidence of how crucial visual imagery was to devotional practices. More recently, Jill Bennett convincingly has argued that Franciscan devotional practices, in particular, developed imagery encoded with devices or symbols designed to offer models of devotional practice and to encourage an affective personal response from the viewer to enhance meditation upon aspects of the image important to Franciscan spirituality.2 While Bennett focused on the iconic imagery of a painted cross, I will begin considering the construction and function of Franciscan narrative by examining the Institution of the Crib at Greccio from the Legend of St. Francis in the Upper Church of San Francesco

1 Chiara Frugoni, “Female Mystics, Visions, and Iconography,” in Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, eds. Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, trans. Margery J. Schneider [Mistiche e devote nell’Italia tardomedievale, 1992] (Chicago and London, 1996), 130. 2 Jill Bennett, “Stigmata and sense memory: St Francis and the affective image,” Art History 24 (2001): 1–16.

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in Assisi, dated c. 1290 (Fig. 1).3 Although part of a much larger cycle of twenty-eight scenes, the richness of this fresco’s imagery provides the opportunity for a limited case study exploring Franciscan approach to narrative and the complex relationship between beholder, image, and devotional practice(s). Citing contemporary scholars and theorists, as well as medieval theologians, on the relationship between memory and the use of imagery, Bennett proposed that late medieval Franciscan images were designed to appeal to the viewers’ experiential sense memory to deepen their spiritual engagement (and perhaps transformation) through absorption in details of the image.4 Medieval practices of viewing encouraged the viewer to experience the image through a type of imitation. The example of Francis provided a powerful model of devotion: Francis had received the stigmata as a result of his affective reading of texts and viewing of images. The stigmata was a visible sign of Francis’s invisible mystical transformation. Bennett pointed to the Franciscan devotional text, The Meditations on the Life of Christ, as a source for our understanding of Franciscan use of imagery as a tool for meditation. Written for a Poor Clare nun, this exhaustive text follows the chronology of Christ’s life and is sprinkled with directives on proper meditation of the holy events. Important also are the exhortations to imagine the sights and sounds of the events described, as well as the feelings of those involved in them. In prefacing his narrative, the author tells the nun that he will relate these events as “they occurred or as they might have occurred.” Although scholarship dates this text to the years between 1346 and 1364, rather than to the earlier period around 1300, nonetheless, I believe it still provides insight on late medieval devotional practices, serving as an indispensable guide to the viewing and interpretive approaches established during the thirteenth century.5 3 The dating and authorship of this fresco cycle remain unresolved and neither will be the focus of this study. For contextual purposes, however, I believe the cycle dates to the last decade of the duecento and was the creation of someone other than Giotto. For a summary of the major arguments concerning the dating and authorship of the frescoes, please see: Thomas de Wesselow, “The Date of the St Francis Cycle in the Upper Church of S. Francesco at Assisi: The Evidence of Copies and Considerations of Method,” this volume: 113–167. 4 Bennett, “Stigmata,” pp. 1–16, esp. 3–12. 5 Bennett, like many others, myself included, has argued that The Meditations served as a source for artists of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. More recent studies of this fascinating text, however, no longer date it to the period

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Ugo Panciera’s above-cited passage confirms a thirteenth-century tradition of using image analogies to aid devotion, likening the process of meditation to that of an artist: moving from outline, to threedimensional modeling, to the addition of color, which finally succeeded in “making the absent present.” The Meditations, and presumably the tradition from which it emerged, relied on visual imagery to stimulate meditation and contemplation; as such, it was an invaluable resource for artists, providing detailed descriptions that enriched the terse gospels. It is tempting to imagine that Franciscan preaching of the gospels followed a similar approach, appealing to the audience through vivid descriptions. The widespread popularity of The Meditations followed the renewed interest by painters in suggesting a coherent spatial realm comparable to the viewer’s physical world. In the decades bracketing the year 1300, that is c. 1290–1310, at least three large-scale projects, the Assisi San Francesco cycle of St. Francis, Duccio’s Maestà, and Giotto’s Arena Chapel frescoes in Padua exhibit a break from earlier medieval approaches by taking on the challenge of constructing a fictional reality. These painters possessed the means to create suggestively illusionistic spaces inhabited by volumetric figures that move and react in recognizable ways to the events pictured. The completeness of these painters’ visions gave the beholders a concrete and external reality, analogous to their own. Like many others, I suspect that Franciscan spirituality played a role in the development of the new pictorial language heralded in the Legend of St. Francis at Assisi. The Franciscan Order made effective use of visual narrative cycles; perhaps their use of narrative was tied to the popularity of their founder whose biography was used to establish the aims of the order as well as a model of sainthood in the late Middle Ages.

around 1300 as stated by Bennett; this text, once attributed to Bonaventure, now is given to Giovanni de Caulibus and dated to after 1346 and before 1364. On the issue of dating, see: Iohannis de Caulibus Meditaciones vite Christi: olim S. Bonaventuro attributae, ed. M. Stallings-Taney (Corpus Christianorum 153) (Turnhout, 1997), xi; Sarah McNamer, “Further Evidence for the Date of the Pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi,” Franciscan Studies 50 (1990): 235–261; Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge, 1996), 193; and Emma Simi Varanelli, “Le Meditationes vitae nostri Domini Jesu Christi nell’arte del Duecento italiano,” Arte Medievale 2nd ser., 6 (1992): 137–148. For authorship of the text, in addition, see: Livario Oliger, “Les Meditationes Vitae Christi del Pseudo-Bonaventura,” Studi Francescani 7 (1921): 143–183 and idem, Studi Francescani 8 (1922): 18–47.

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Frequently cited for its sophisticated treatment of spatial relationships, the scene depicting the Institution of the Crib at Greccio from the Legend of St Francis presents a multi-layered spectacle that offers the act of sight, mystical vision, and spiritual understanding all unfolding within the space of a chancel. This rectangular fresco is located just inside the entrance of the Upper Church of San Francesco, on the north wall (that is as the last narrative scene on the right wall of the nave and the first encountered upon entering the heavy wooden doors). This scene, and all those illustrating the Legend of St. Francis, is drawn from Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, the 1266 official biography of Francis paraphrased in Latin titulae on the wall below the scenes.6 Bonaventure’s text informs the reader that Francis obtained permission from the Pope to celebrate the memory of the Nativity, “in order to arouse devotion”: He had a manger prepared, hay carried in and an ox and an ass led to the spot. The brethren are summoned, the people arrive, the forest amplifies with their cries, and that venerable night is rendered brilliant and solemn by a multitude of bright lights and by resonant and harmonious hymns of praise. The man of God stands before the manger, filled with piety, bathed in tears, and overcome with joy. A solemn Mass is celebrated over the manger, with Francis, a levite of Christ, chanting the holy Gospel. Then he preaches to the people standing around him about the birth of the poor King, whom, whenever he means to call him, he called in his tender love, the Babe from Bethlehem. A certain virtuous and truthful knight, Sir John of Greccio, who had abandoned worldly military activity out of love of Christ and had become an intimate friend of the man of God, claimed that he saw a beautiful little child asleep in that manger whom the blessed father Francis embraced in both of his arms and seemed to wake it

6 The Latin inscription for the Crib at Greccio reads: QUOMODO BEATUS FRANCISCUS IN MEMORIAM NATALIS CHRISTI FECIT PRAEPARARI PRAESEPIUM, APPORTARI FOENUM, BOVEM ET ASINUM ADDUCI, ET DE NATIVITATE PAUPERIS REGIS PRAEDICAVIT, ITEMQUE SANCTO VIRO ORATIONEM HABENTE, MILES QUIDAM VIDIT PUERM IESUM LOCO ILLIUS QUEM SANCTUS ATTULERAT. (How Blessed Francis, in memory of the birth of Christ, had a crib prepared, that hay and that an ox and an ass be brought in, and afterwards he preached to the people about the birth of the poor King. Then a knight saw the Child Jesus in the place of that child placed there by the Saint.) Today the titulae are nearly illegible. I have used the inscription and translation found in: Bruno Dozzini, Giotto: The “Legend of St. Francis” in the Assisi Basilica, trans. The New School—S. Maria degli Angeli (Assisi, 1994), 32. Alastair Smart also includes the Latin inscription as well as the translation, see: Alastair Smart, The Assisi Problem and the Art of Giotto (Oxford, 1971), 275–76.


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from sleep. Not only does the holiness of the witness make credible the vision of the devout knight, but also the truth it expresses proves its validity and the subsequent miracles confirm it. For Francis’s example, when considered by the world, is capable of arousing the hearts of those who are sluggish in the faith of Christ. . . .7

The contrast between the Assisi fresco and Bonaventure’s text is remarkable; besides supplying the broad outlines, the narrative seemingly does not account for the imaginative fresco. Like other images of the late Middle Ages, however, the painter of the Assisi cycle is responding, at least in part, to a devotional approach popularized by the later Meditations on the Life of Christ. In examining the Assisi Crib at Greccio, we find that the artist, like the author of the Meditations, used an extremely detailed and descriptive approach, which is not supplied by Bonaventure. Rather than surrounded by the forest at Greccio, a monumental tramezzo or rood screen spans the entire width of the image, visually providing an ingenious device to close off the distractions a nave viewpoint would offer, and against which to silhouette the figures assembled. The rood screen extends upward nearly two-thirds of the scene’s height; its terminus is marked by a cornice, on which liturgical furnishings are displayed from the viewpoint of the chancel, that is the objects are seen from their reverse sides. On the left a pulpit is featured, complete with a monumental stairway of ascent, balanced on the right by the Gothic, gabled canopy of the ciborium rising over the altar in the chancel. Centered over the rood screen’s doorway opening is a monumental crucifix, shown in perspective, its painted face leaning forward toward the nave, away from the space represented; it is held in place by a chain connected to a tripod support affixed to the cornice. Like the pulpit, only the reverse side of the crucifix is visible; its three-dimensionality is articulated by the shaded cross-bars and battens of its supports, yet its distinctive silhouette serves to identify it. In the foreground, the dramatic reenactment planned by Francis is represented. In the fresco Francis kneels in the chancel lifting a baby from a manger, beside which a miniature ox and ass lie. Shown in profile, Francis and the crib face the ciborium-covered altar on which a

7

For a translated text of Bonaventure, please consult: “The Major Legend of Saint Francis 1260–1263)” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols., Volume II: The Founder, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, William J. Short (New York, 2000), II, 610–611.

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white liturgical cloth is draped. The architecture of the ciborium itself is quite elaborate, recalling Arnolfo di Cambio’s Roman ciboria: four porphyry columns, topped by Corinthian capitals, support the gabled canopy, which includes an architrave decorated with a Cosmatesque frieze.8 Gothic crockets punctuate the gables, and the two visible pediments each have different designs: one displays a gothic trefoil opening and the other a heraldic design of angels flanking a wreath. A lantern, which replicates in miniature the design of the ciborium, crowns the structure. Perhaps as a sign of the Christmas season, green garlands gracefully fall in swags between the porphyry columns above the altar. The front of the altar does not face the nave, but instead is oriented perpendicular to the nave (and ground plane), and turned in a gentle oblique angle into depth. Tightly surrounding the altar are a group of friars and at least two laymen whose heads are bowed in prayer. Francis and three others are dressed in clerical garments; Francis wears the vestments of a Levite or Deacon, and the foremost friar wears the chasuble of the priest. The remaining four other friars, standing in the background parallel to the tramezzo, are dressed in Franciscan habits and have their mouths open in song. Immediately parallel to the profile of the kneeling Francis is a raised lectern, which holds an open book, perhaps the antiphonary, a candelabrum, and tacked to its side is a sheet of paper with writing on it (the liturgical calendar?). Just to the left of the raised lectern, in an area behind Francis, stands a larger group of laymen dressed in an array of carefully differentiated garments, including at least two singing brothers. The heads of the four visible friars who stand joined in song are raised above the level of the crowd; they appear to be elevated by choir stalls, of which a fragment is visible just behind Francis. The remaining group of observers—all women with their hair devoutly covered—is framed within the doorway of the rood screen. The extraordinary details of this fresco are meticulously rendered. The chancel space features the most current liturgical furnishings within a distinctively Franciscan

8 Arnolfo di Cambio completed two ciboria in Rome at the end of the thirteenth century: S. Paolo fuori le Mura, 1285 and Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere, 1293. The fresco’s ciborium bears a stunning resemblance to Arnolfo’s 1285 work in S. Paolo fuori le Mura, which itself radically departed from earlier examples, especially in its up-to-date Gothic details; see: John White, Art and Architecture in Italy 1250–1400, 3rd ed., (Pelican History of Art) (New Haven, 1993), 105–107.


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and Umbrian arrangement of the choir area.9 Some have proposed that it records the reenactment of Francis’s Greccio sermon, which took place each year in the Lower Church of San Francesco.10 In fact, as others have noted, the marble choir screen that once divided the lay and liturgical spaces of the Lower Church, bears some physical resemblance to the one represented in this fresco. There are no extant visual traditions or precedents for this type of specificity. In the dossal by the Bardi St Francis Master (Fig. 2) for Santa Croce in Florence, dated by William Cook to c. 1245, the Crib at Greccio (Fig. 3) appears as the sixth narrative of twenty scenes that surround the iconic standing figure of Francis.11 As Cook explains, although the content of the scenes is drawn from I Celano as well as enriched by stories from local oral tradition, the narrative sequencing of scenes disregards I Celano altogether and loosely follows the chronology of Francis’s life. As a result, the placement of the Crib at Greccio begins a trio of scenes devoted to preaching (also represented are the Sermon to the Birds and Preaching before the Sultan). In the Bardi Dossal scene, the artist creates a powerful, hierarchic composition that uses the central vertical axis to “stack” selected elements. In the center, a standing, frontal priest, wearing a chasuble, presides over an altar on which rests an open book; in front of the altar a nimbus-wearing Christ child lies within the manger, into which the heads of the ox and ass intently peer. The manger is raised upon a mound and framed within a rocky cropping understood as signifying the cave at Greccio. Two groups of figures are placed on either side, distinctly separated from the altar. On the altar’s right, several clerics stand, some extending long tapers forward toward the center. 9 Recent findings of Donal Cooper show that Franciscan churches in the Umbria region often used a tramezzo or choir screen to create a distinct liturgical area housing the altar and choir stalls separate from the laity and the nave, see: Donal Cooper, “Franciscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double-Sided Altarpieces in Pre-Tridentine Umbria,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 64 (2001): 1–54, esp. pp. 51–54. 10 Pietro Scarpellini, “Assisi e suoi monumenti nella pittura dei secoli XIII–XVI,” in Assisi al tempo di San Francesco, Atti del V Convegno Internazionale (13–16 Ottobre 1977) (Assisi, 1978), pp. 104–108; and more recently: Paola Mercurelli Salari, “L’arte francescana nella Valle Reatina,” in Il francescanesimo nella Valle Reatina, eds. Luigi Pellegrini and Stanislao da Campagnola (Rieti, [1993]), p. 168. 11 For bibliography on the dossal, please consult: William R. Cook, Images of St Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to ca. 1320: A Catalogue (Italian Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7) (Florence, 2001), pp. 98–102; for a more extended discussion of the panel, its historiography and iconography, see: William R. Cook, “New Sources New Insights: The Bardi Dossal of the Life and Miracles of St Francis of Assisi,” Studi francescani 93 (1996): 325–346.

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On the opposite side, a lectern separates another group of figures from the altar. Francis stands at the lectern, wearing Deacon’s vestments, his head inclined toward the book on the lectern and his right hand extended upward, swinging a censor over the text. Behind him stand a group of figures, identified by Cook as laypeople. The background is composed of conventional-looking architecture, typical of many Dugento panels, using a miniature scale in relation to the figures. The multi-storied buildings create an alternative rhythm to the isocephaly of the standing figures, and the buildings’ fenestration offers a counter horizontal rhythm. In this panel, a low building, half the height of the panel, extends across the entire width of the scene, thus creating a continuous horizontal element that links the two divided groups of figures. The taller structures framing the edges of the work are unusual; they create the buttressing piers of a wide, arched opening centered over the scene below, rather than the more discrete vertical units that typically balance or frame both sides of a typical composition in this period.12 The edge of the arch or vault is articulated by a repeating decorative pattern that resembles individual stones, or voussoirs. Cook suggests that the scene takes place within a large church. Although the arch could indicate the celebration takes place at the entrance to the church or perhaps at the gates of the city or commune, it is more likely that this archway should be seen within the context of late medieval sacred drama: the Bardi St Francis Master, like early dramatists of the Christmas plays, sets the scene at the main altar.13 Dorothy Glass reminds us that dramatic representations of the Christmas story grew out of the liturgy.14 Although criticized for his 12 See, for example, the Approval of the Order, which appears immediately above the Crib at Greccio on the Bardi dossal, reproduced in: Cook, Images of St Francis, p. 98. This arch that spans between the two vertical buildings is an unusual component and one that signals a particular location, such as the choir of a church, rather than the more generic urban locale signified by the use of buildings in these compositions. 13 Dramatizations of the Christmas story arose during the eleventh century in relationship to the liturgy. Although staging directions are not always included in the extant examples, Christmas plays generally are staged at the main altar, see: Dunbar H. Ogden, “Chapter Three: Staging Space and Patterns of Movement,” in The Staging of Drama in the Medieval Church (Newark, 2002), pp. 39–112. 14 I wish to thank Dorothy F. Glass for her long-standing generosity; she graciously sent me her conference paper: “Christmas Before Greccio,” an unpublished paper presented at the 37th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2–5, 2002. In this paper Glass efficiently summarizes the visual and dra-


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“Darwinian” method, Karl Young conveniently grouped plays by types.15 Briefly outlined, the four plays associated with the Christmas season are: the Officium Pastorum, the visit of the shepherds to the manger, usually performed after the liturgy of Christmas Day; the Officium Stellae, a more expansive play recounting the journey of the Magi that was staged on Epiphany, January 6; the Ordo Rachelis, dramatizing the Massacre of the Innocents presented on Innocent’s Day, December 28; and the Ordo Prophetarum, a performance that gathered together the “utterances” of the prophets who foretold Christ’s coming, performed on Christmas day or a week later. It is the first two plays, the Officium Pastorum and the Officium Stellae, that are most relevant to Francis’s celebration at Greccio. Ogden summarizes the gradual development of the Officium Pastorum between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries.16 The earliest formal staging for which the directions are extant comes from an eleventhcentury text in Novalesa, which positioned two deacons behind the altar who addressed two cantors, representing shepherds seeking Christ, who stood in the choir, probably in front of the altar. A Paduan thirteenth-century text included notes that located the manger in front of the main altar in the choir; at the approach of the shepherds, two midwives uncovered an image of the Virgin and Child. At Rouen, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Officium Pastorum was performed after Matins and preceded the first Mass of Christmas Day. The manger was set up at the back of the main altar, and representations of the Virgin and Child were revealed to the audience after midwives, dressed in dalmatics, pulled back a curtain at the query of approaching shepherds. The western interest in the Nativity dates back to Early Christianity, marked by Pope Liberius’s establishment of the Feast of the Nativity

matic tradition that preceded Francis’s celebration at Greccio. Glass strongly expresses the belief that reciprocal influences between drama and art affected the development of each, concluding that the Assisi fresco is the result of a richly developed network of influences from drama, liturgy and Franciscan affective devotion. 15 Dunbar criticizes Young’s organization of his seminal work into discussions of drama type, which he says is based on the mistaken assumption that types developed from the simplest to more complex, thus ignoring the development of drama that might take place at a single church over time as one play type adapted elements from other types. See: Dunbar, The Staging of Drama, p. 18; and Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols. (1933; repr. Oxford, 1951), II, 3–198. 16 The information for this paragraph comes from: Ogden, The Staging of Drama, pp. 72–3.

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in 354. A succinct publication by Arduino Terzi traced the western development of the three-dimensional representation of the crib or praesepe, providing a historical context for the development of the dramatic mise-en-scène of Christmas plays as well as Francis’s pious establishment of Greccio as the new Bethlehem.17 Terzi, like Glass and Young, point out that Pope Theodore (642–649) transferred a relic of the mangiatoia, the trough of the donkey and ox, from Bethlehem to Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, thus giving the church the additional designation of Santa Maria ad Praesepe. In a continued gesture of reverence for the relic, Pope Gregory III (731–741) later commissioned a gold image of the Christ child, his arms decorated with gems, for the crib.18 By the late Middle Ages the popularity of the Christmas crib was widespread throughout Europe, and devotion to it was only intensified by the Franciscans. At about the same time that painters were at work on the Assisi fresco cycle, Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan Pope, commissioned Arnolfo di Cambio to create a sculptural group depicting the Adoration of the Magi for a new chapel he added to Santa Maria Maggiore, later replaced by alterations commissioned by Pope Sixtus V between 1585 and 1590.19 We know that Arnolfo’s sculptural group took the form of a tableau vivant composed of figures in the round as well as in deep relief. Arnolfo’s dramatic approach to the praesepe scene has a long and rich history. Ilene Forsythe long ago asserted the diverse functions of the Thrones of Wisdom, or sculpted wooden representations of the Enthroned Madonna and Child, which were used in sacred plays dramatizing the adoration of Christ by the shepherds or Magi.20 Glass underscores the rich and complex nature of the “cross fertilization” between visual and dramatic representations that was in place by the twelfth century. Pointing to a tympanum from the

17

Terzi cites a diverse range of sources, from the biblical texts of the prophets and evangelists, to the dissemination of Byzantine iconographic traditions and pilgrims’ descriptions of the Holy Land, to sacred drama evolving out of the liturgy; see: Arduino Terzi, Nella Selva di Greccio nacque il Presepio Plastico, 2nd ed. ([1961]; Rome, 1966). 18 Terzi, Nella Selva di Greccio, 11. 19 Moskowitz dates the praesepe to between 1285/87 and 1291. See: Anita Fiderer Moskowitz, Italian Gothic Sculpure, c. 1250–c. 1400 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 58–61. Moskowitz includes photographs of the extant figures and a well-reasoned argument describing the general composition of the missing figures. 20 Ilene R. Forsythe, The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France (Princeton, 1972).


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Cathedral of Verona, dated to around 1139 representing the Adoration of the Shepherds, she surmises that the contrast between the rigid presentation of the seated Madonna and Child and the more animated shepherds probably resulted from the use of sculpted, wooden images (the Thrones of Wisdom) within performances of Christmas plays such as the Officium Pastorum, where the speaking roles were performed by “live” figures, and the Virgin and Child represented by the inanimate wooden sculptures. Glass also points out that iconographical details from the dramatized plays also made their way into artistic representations, citing the lintel from Sant’ Andrea at Pistoia. In this 1166 sculpted representation of the Magi Before King Herod and the Adoration of the Magi, she identifies an extra figure kneeling before Herod as Nuntius, a messenger figure found in many versions of the Officium Stellae drama of the Magi. The scenes of the Crib at Greccio from the Bardi dossal and the Assisi fresco are heir to this rich and diverse tradition begun long before Francis’s celebration at Greccio, as well as part of the continued Franciscan pious devotion to Christmas. The Bardi dossal, like the Assisi fresco, places the drama at the main altar in the church. In the dossal scene, the Priest presides over the altar while Francis reads from the gospel. The Assisi fresco has shifted focus to include the ecstatic vision of John of Greccio who saw Francis pick up the Christ child from the manger. The Assisi image, unlike the Bardi dossal, records an additional dramatic influence. It has been suggested that the precious size of the ox and ass lying beside the Assisi crib recall the use of terracotta figures of the animals in Nativity plays (and perhaps are meant to remind the viewer of the reenactment of Francis’s Greccio episode re-enacted in the Lower Church).21 With this rich tradition of artistic and dramatic representation in mind, let us now turn to examine the Franciscan texts. As stated earlier, there is no precedent in either the artistic or literary tradition for the dramatic and descriptive detail found in the Assisi fresco; however, it is worthwhile to consider narrative techniques used in Franciscan literature. The Legenda Maior, the official biography commissioned in 1260 from Bonaventure, who was elected the Minister General 1257, is the ostensible text upon which the frescoes are

21 See: Paola M. Salari, “L’arte francescana,” p. 168 (as in note 10) and Emilio Cecchi, Giotto, 3rd rev. ed. (Milano, 1950), p. 50.

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based and from which the Latin paraphrase appearing below each scene is drawn. At the order of the General Chapter, the Legenda Maior replaced all earlier writings about Francis, which were ordered destroyed. We do know, however, that the Sacro Convento in Assisi did retain at least one copy of I Celano.22 Completed by 1263, the Legenda Maior made use of these earlier sources, but had a different purpose in mind: that of establishing Francis as a new model of sainthood and legitimizing the order of the Lesser Brothers. The comparison between the Bonaventure text and I Celano makes clear their different purposes. Writing for a rapidly expanding and divided Order, Bonaventure codified the Franciscan narrative, selecting vignettes that not only outline the life of the man, but also at the same time model his virtues and actions to create a basic framework for Franciscan spirituality. I Celano, on the other hand, as the first known written life dating only three years after Francis’s death (1229), has the freshness and excitement of recent experience. It is a text that seeks to place Francis and the Order decisively within Salvation and Church history, while also conveying the sense of a real man who was a penitent from Assisi. Celano’s account of Greccio revels in the sense of reliving the experience. Especially notable is the change in tense as Celano moves from recounting the preparations for the celebration to describing the event as though it were occurring before his eyes: Finally, the day of joy has drawn near, the time of exultation has come. From many different places the brethren have been called. As they could, the men and women of that land with exultant hearts prepare candles and torches to light up that night whose shining star has enlightened every day and year. Finally, the holy man of God comes and, finding all things prepared, he saw them and was glad. Indeed, the manger is prepared, the hay is carried in, and the ox and the ass are led to the spot. There simplicity is given a place of honor, poverty is exalted, humility is commended, and out of Greccio is made a new Bethlehem. The night is lit up like day, delighting both man and beast. The people arrive, ecstatic at this new mystery of new joy. The forest amplifies the cries and the boulders echo back the joyful crowd. The

22

Today close to twenty copies remain of I Celano, and the Sacro Convento in Assisi retains the only copy of II Celano (the other copy is held in the Bibliotheca Centralis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum of the Collegio Internazionale S. Lorenzo da Brindisi, Rome).


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brothers sing, giving God due praise, and the whole night abounds with jubilation. The holy man of God stands before the manger, filled with heartfelt sighs, contrite in his piety, and overcome with wondrous joy. Over the manger the solemnities of the Mass are celebrated and the priest enjoys a new consolation. The holy man of God is dressed in the vestments of the Levites, since he was a Levite, and with full voice sings the holy gospel. Here is his voice; a powerful voice, a pleasant voice, a clear voice, a musical voice, inviting all to the highest of gifts. Then he preaches to the people standing around him and pours forth sweet honey about the birth of the poor King and the poor city of Bethlehem. Moreover, burning with excessive love, he often calls Christ the “babe from Bethlehem” whenever he means to call him Jesus. Saying the word “Bethlehem” in the manner of a bleating sheep, he fills his whole mouth with sound but even more with sweet affection. He seems to lick his lips whenever he uses the expressions “Jesus” or “babe from Bethlehem,” tasting the word on his happy palate and savoring the sweetness of the word. The gifts of the Almighty are multiplied there and a virtuous man sees a wondrous vision. For the man saw a little child lying lifeless in the manger and he saw the holy man of God approach the child and waken him from a deep sleep. Nor is this vision unfitting, since in the hearts of many the child Jesus has been given over to oblivion. Now he is awakened and impressed on their loving memory by His own grace through His holy servant Francis. At length, the night’s solemnities draw to a close and everyone went home with joy.23

While Bonaventure’s official account of the Greccio narrative may form the basis of the Assisi fresco, Celano’s “eyewitness” viewpoint recounting the unfolding of the evening seems to provide the inspiration for the artist’s approach to and description of the elements. The immediacy of Celano’s description also is a key element found in the Meditations, where the imaginative accretions of the author strive to give the account a witness-like authority. Repeatedly the author advises his reader to “see,” to “behold,” to “look” at the scene he is describing, appealing to her imagination through visual imagery. He is outlining a practical guide to meditation that depends on a lively amplification of the gospel narratives, often asking the reader to imagine herself present at the event. The reader is told to look closely at participants, to imagine their feelings and reactions

23 I have used the following text of I Celano: “The Life of Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols., Volume I: The Saint, eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, William J. Short (New York, 2000), I, 255–256.

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to circumstances. When the author tells his reader about Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, he begins the passage from a distant “viewpoint,” looking at Christ and the disciples. Then his perspective draws much closer to examine Christ’s face, and in turn, the disciples’ countenances as they look intently upon him. This closer proximity to the group allows the reader to act as a witness to the event: she is encouraged to hear Christ’s voice, and even (through meditation) to participate and become part of the gathering. In a way, the author suggests that the reader take the disciples’ positions in studying the face of Christ, and then even more intriguing, although it is not stated directly, to assume Christ’s position while looking at the disciples. Afterwards, the author sets the scene in motion, and the perspective grows more distant, observing the movement away from Christ and the disciples, which brilliantly is compared to the accidental and humble activity of a hen and her chickens.24 An artist, or image-maker, was a member of a profession that was in the business of glossing the narrative, much as the author of the Meditations could add contemporary references to make the stories of the Bible seem more immediate to his audience. This visual embroidery gave images vividness, but just as the author of the Meditations distinguishes his handbook by its personalized appeal to the imagination of the reader, just as Francis’ biographies helped to establish a new model of sainthood in the later Middle Ages, these frescoes chronicling St. Francis’ life break from earlier images by insisting on an element of reality, thus contributing to a critical turning point in the history of narrative art. Like the Meditations’ directives to the reader calling on her to look, to listen, and to be present at an event, the image of the Assisi Crib at Greccio includes visual cues that appeal to several of the beholder’s

24 This image of the hen and her chickens is also one that Celano draws upon in II Celano: “Mulling over these things, the man of God saw this vision. As he slept one night, he saw a small black hen, similar to a common dove, with feathered legs and feet. She had countless chicks and they kept running around her frantically, but she could not gather all of them under her wings. The man of God woke up, remembering his concerns, interpreted his own vision. ‘I am the hen,’ he said, ‘small in size and dark by nature, whose innocence of life should serve dovelike simplicity, which is as rare in this world as it is swift in flight to heaven. The chicks are the brothers, multiplied in number and grace. . . .’ ” See: “The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul by Thomas of Celano,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols., Volume II: The Founder, eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, William J. Short (New York, 2000), II, 260.


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senses, thereby more fully absorbing the viewer within the moment depicted. Although the scene on the Bardi dossal does include specific elements to suggest the setting of the altar in a choir, and differentiates between the clothing of the priest and Francis, the panel does not possess the complexity of the Assisi fresco, which suggests a scene unfolding in space and time. The clothing worn by the figures in the Assisi fresco may be identified with specific professions, not only the priest’s chasuble and Francis’s deacon’s garments, but also the fur-lined garments of the wealthy business class. Perhaps more important to the sense of action unfolding are the assortment of expressions worn by individuals. Sensory cues provided by the liturgical props, such as the open book on the lectern, the candles and liturgical vestments, suggest that Francis’s preaching of the gospel, mentioned by both Celano and Bonaventure, has just finished. A more concrete auditory cue is the open mouths of the friars who raise their voices in song. The image permits several points of entry for the viewer. The specificity of the spatial location of the figures encourages identification with one or more of the figures represented. Instructed in the devotional practices advocated in the Meditations, the beholder might imagine herself gazing at the scene from a variety of positions, as layperson or friar, and finally perhaps as Francis himself, embracing the child. It is here that Celano and Bonaventure depart most radically. Celano tells the reader “the virtuous man sees a wondrous vision. For the man saw a little child lying lifeless in the manger and he saw the holy man of God approach the child and waken him from a deep sleep.” In the Assisi fresco, I believe that the painter suggests a vestige of Celano’s miraculous awakening of the child through the intense psychological gaze shared between Francis and the child. That electric gaze between a child and embracing adult is not found again in art until Giotto’s scene in the 1305 Arena Chapel frescos in Padua. The Assisi painter’s choice of echoing Nativity iconography for this scene reinforces a link to Christmas plays and perhaps the reenactment of Greccio that took place in the Lower Church. Celano suggests this “wondrous vision” is an appropriate metaphor for Christians whose lapsed faith was reawakened by Francis’s devotion to Christ who is now “impressed on their loving memory by His own grace, through His holy servant Francis.” Unlike Celano, whose rapturous recounting of the scene is suggestive of a miracle, Bonaventure tells the reader that Sir John of Greccio “claimed that

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he saw a beautiful little child asleep in that manger whom the blessed father Francis embraced in both of his arms and seemed to wake it from sleep.” Bonaventure, like Celano, continues the metaphor of lapsed and awakened faith: “Francis’s example, when considered by the world, is capable of arousing the hearts of those who are sluggish in the faith of Christ.” Although Bonaventure plays down the miraculous nature of the knight’s vision, he does tell his readers that “[t]he hay from the crib was kept by the people and miraculously cured sick animals and drove away different kinds of pestilence.” Just as in the Meditations’ description of the Sermon on the Mount, the beholder of the Assisi fresco, trained in the affective devotions of the Franciscans, might not only look at the faces of those gathered, but also become one of those present, imagining himself as a witness from several vantage points. But what of the viewpoint occupied by the women within the doorway? The tramazzo marks the division between sacred and lay areas of the church, between those spaces accessible to women and that closed; the women’s appearance within the doorway, outside of the chancel proper, limits their participation to visual observers. Or does it? Generally they are assumed to be observers, yet, the artist made an extraordinary effort to create a detailed description of the space and the figures enclosed by it. Unlike the omnipotent vantage of the fresco’s actual beholder who sees everyone and everything, these women lack visual access to Francis’ gaze into the eyes of the awakened child. The women are separated from Francis by the raised lectern in which his form is inscribed completely. Furthermore, the space separating the lectern from the ciborium-covered altar, a space that might have permitted the women to gaze upon the transformed child, is filled by the body of a devout layman. Thus, the women actually are prevented from seeing Francis holding the infant. In fact, few figures actually look upon Francis and the child: the eyes of Francis and the baby are locked together; the priest standing beside the altar also seems to witness the awakening, and the aforementioned devout layman is rapt in reverence staring directly downward into the face of the baby. Bonaventure tells the reader: “[a] certain virtuous and truthful knight, Sir John of Greccio, had abandoned worldly military activity out of love of Christ and had become an intimate friend of the man of God.” The rest of the observers either look heavenward, or in a general direction toward the altar. Perhaps the vantage point of the women standing within the doorway of the rood screen, a viewpoint


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that denies visual access to the miracle, is one that most clearly parallels the reader’s position in the Meditations. The reader of any text does not physically see events take place that are described; instead the text depends on the ability of the reader to imagine herself present, to conjure up within her imagination the sights, sounds, and smells of the desired scene. The women framed within the doorway look toward the altar and perhaps within their own “bodily senses” they see the “babe from Bethlehem.” In reality, the fresco itself does not recreate the Nativity, but the Gospel text preached by Francis is impressed upon their memory by the “holy servant Francis.” The fresco depends on the beholder’s ability to comprehend visual cues, which as suggested by Daniel Arasse, operate as signals to access the art of memory.25 I would argue that the painter, naturally interested in the power of sight, uses these visual cues to trigger the beholder’s memory regarding the Nativity as well as this event at Greccio. First, of course, is the intense psychological gaze shared between Francis and the Christ child. Equally dramatic is the foreshortened head of the layman who looks down, representing the knight mentioned in Bonaventure’s text, who “affirmed that he saw a little Child” awakened by Francis. It is in the details of the rendering of this figure that the artist visually signals the vision of John of Greccio: his head, bent downward, is transfigured by the effects of foreshortening. An artist’s use of an illusionistic device, like foreshortening, is similar to the persuasive elements contributed by the author of the Meditations. In the late thirteenth century, foreshortening was such an unusual device that its very appearance signals its importance. His foreshortened or disfigured head differentiates him from the others, as does the treatment of his clothing: his garments are transfigured by the bright sheen of light reflecting off their surfaces (unlike the soft, gradual shading describing the garments of those around him). The painter is translating this man’s visionary experience in visual terms; literally he is transfigured and enlightened. His role as visionary is translated literally as a bright light shining onto him. Like the women standing outside the chancel, whose positions mirror our own as beholder to the image, we may become witness to the miracle through Daniel Arasse, “Fonctions de l’image religieuse au XVe siécle” in Faire Croire: modalités de la diffusion et de la réception des messages réligieux di XII e au XV e siécle, Collection de L’école Française de Rome 51 (Rome, 1981), 132–46. Cited and discussed in: Bennett, “Stigmata and sense memory,” pp. 2–5. 25

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the spiritual and devotional exercises described in the Meditations. Although physically absent from the actual event (parallel to the women’s lack of visual access), we must imagine ourselves present, using the sensory cues provided in the fresco to aid in the visualization of the scene. The painter’s vivid description may awaken the beholder’s memory in stages, as described by Ugo Panciera, first recalling the outline of the story, enhanced perhaps by recollections of Christmas plays or the crèches popularized by Francis; as instructed by manuals such as the Meditations, the beholder, ultimately, would seek to meditate upon the meaning of Francis’s awakening of the child. A counterpoint to the Crib at Greccio is the Verification of the Stigmata (Fig. 4), located on the opposite nave wall in the third bay. (Standing in the nave with the Crib at Greccio behind you, the Verification of the Stigmata is located diagonally opposite in the second bay from the entrance.) In the Meditations, when the author closed his examination of the Sermon on the Mount, he led the reader away from the scene. The Crib at Greccio also appeals to a sense of continued time and movement through space: the beholder may imagine leaving the chancel, genuflecting in the nave and looking up to see the painted side of the crucifix. Within the cycle of the Legend of St. Francis, the beholder is rewarded with this vision on the south wall. The Verification of the Stigmata employs a similar spatial conceit to the Crib of Greccio; however, now the scene is viewed from the nave looking toward a much simpler screen, or rood beam, consisting of a simple wooden horizontal shaft supported by consoles just visible at its outermost edges. This echoes the original arrangement in the Upper Church, seen in early photographs of the nave where the rood beam or iconostasis supporting a monumental painted cross is barely visible near the crossing. In the fresco, the beam holds an image of the Enthroned Madonna and Child on the left, a monumental painted crucifix in the center, and an image of Michael the Archangel on the right, all presenting their painted surfaces toward the beholder. Visible behind the wooden structure is the ghostly outline of the apse, articulated by a stringcourse and the molding surround of the arch. Various light fixtures are suspended on long cords, presumably from the ceiling, as is the forward-leaning Crucifix. A man kneels in the foreground examining Francis’ side wound: the man described by Bonaventure as “a knight who was educated and prudent, Jerome by name, a distinguished and famous man.” The knight


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pulls back Francis’s robe with his right hand, while fingers of his left hand probe the wound. Besides this particular appeal to knowledge gained through touch and vision, auditory and olfactory cues are present: the friars chant, laymen gesture and speak among themselves, and incense and tapers burn. Jill Bennett recently suggested that images, which include a focus on an area of detail within a more general depiction, illustrate a specific mode of viewing that encouraged the beholder to become absorbed in the detail as part of the process of meditation. This absorption in a specific detail of the image offered appeals to the viewer’s memory and specific cues to enter into devotional meditation. In this detail of the knight fingering Francis’ wound, the beholder might feel invited to recall how Francis received the stigmata, a scene represented before this one, his exhortations to meditate on the Crucifixion, a fresco represented above in the earlier New Testament cycle, and the scene’s parallelism to the content of the Doubting of Thomas and to the Lamentation of Christ, which also is represented above in the New Testament cycle, placed diagonally to the left of the Verification. In addition to acknowledging Francis as alter Christus, the faithful observer also might make further connections between Francis and Christ, meditating on their shared humility and suffering. Like the Crib at Greccio, the beholder is offered various points of view from which to examine the scene, ranging from a layperson, to a friar, to the knight probing the wound of Francis. This use of images to prompt or enhance meditation was not a new idea; Francis himself was a model of this visual approach to devotion. In fact, it was a painted crucifix that urged Francis to heed his divine calling. This famous scene, the Miracle of the Crucifix (Fig. 5), is the fourth scene of the cycle. Bonaventure tells us Francis was passing by the dilapidated church of S. Damiano when he was prompted by the spirit to enter the church and pray before the crucifix. While prostrate before the cross he heard with his “bodily ears a voice” coming from that cross: “Francis was astonished at the sound of that wondrous voice; then, experiencing in his heart the power of the divine utterance, he was carried out of his senses in a rapture of the spirit.” Francis’ experience before that cross in S. Damiano nearly conforms to John of Genoa’s three-part defense of imagery in churches summarized in his late thirteenth-century Catholicon, a standard dictionary of the period:

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beth a. mulvaney Know that there were three reasons for the institution of images in churches. First, for the instruction of simple people, because they are instructed by them as if by books. Second, so that the mystery of the incarnation and the examples of the saints may be the more active in our memory through being presented daily to our eyes. Third, to excite feelings of devotion, these being more effectively aroused by things seen than by things heard.26

In considering medieval ideas regarding the function of religious images, it would be profitable to analyze the relationship between the Assisi cycle and Bonaventure’s mysticism expressed in his writings.27 Although this is a topic that deserves more sustained treatment than I can offer at this time, I would point toward Bonaventure’s belief that souls are led to divine truth through a process he called “contuition” or contuitio. Bonaventure’s stages of contemplation begin with sense knowledge, and proceed through intellectual knowledge to finally experience divine truth. Just as Francis’s preaching of the gospels reawakened John of Greccio’s experience of the incarnation, the sensory cues provided in the Assisi frescoes allow for viewers to become witnesses to the events of Francis’s life, thereby opening the possibility for some to experience the divine truth revealed in Francis’s model of sanctity. In conclusion, The Legend of St. Francis at Assisi is one of the earliest cycles employing an approach that uses strategies analogous to those found in other Franciscan texts, particularly the witness-like appeal of I Celano, the Legenda Maior, and the Meditations on the Life of Christ. The artist beckons to the beholder by appealing to sight, smell, sounds, touch and perhaps even taste as he vividly makes the absent present and places the beholder as witness to the life and miracles of Francis, the prime follower of the vita Christi tradition.

26 Baxandall discusses the religious function of images and includes this passage in: Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford, 1972), pp. 40–41. 27 An articulate discussion of Bonaventure’s mysticism and his understanding of contuitio may be found in: Ewart H. Cousins, “Bonaventure’s Mysticism of Language,” in Mysticism and Language, ed. Steven T. Katz (New York, 1992), pp. 236–257.

‘I SPEAK NOT YET OF PROOF’: DANTE AND THE ART OF ASSISI Ronald B. Herzman

Did Dante know the Assisi Frescoes, and the art of the Basilica of Saint Francis?1 Of course he did. As everyone knows, and as Giorgio Petrocchi has so clearly put it, Francis and the Franciscan vision are at the theological and religious center of the Comedy.2 And any serious understanding of Francis has to include art, because that is one of the key ways in which the Franciscan message was communicated. When the friars came to town, their art came with them. Put simply, one gets to know Francis through the art that Francis’ followers commissioned. Or better, one cannot get to know Francis and his vision in depth and in breadth—one cannot get to know Francis the way that Dante clearly knew Francis—without the significant body of art that directly and indirectly proclaimed his message. And the fountainhead of Franciscan art is the Basilica of Saint Francis. That is where we find Francis in his most concentrated (artistic) form. QED. Sort of. During the 1978–79 academic year I was a Fellow in Residence at the University of Chicago. One of the advantages of that position was that I was able to audit courses at the University at will, and since I was by this time teaching Dante regularly, but embarrassingly enough had never read the Commedia in Italian except for the portions of it that were the subject of my immediate research interests, I was a conscientious auditor in the year-long Dante course taught that year by Paolo Cherchi. I continue to be grateful for the experience. I forget exactly how it came up, but I think someone

1 I would like to thank Bill Cook, Wes Kennison, and Bill Stephany not only for their direct help on this project, but for their long-term guidance on things Franciscan. 2 Giorgio Petrocchi, Vita Di Dante (Rome, 1983), 217: “. . . il centro spriituale del Paradiso è proprio nell’elogio di San Francesco tessuto da san Tomasso d”Aquino, e il momento in cui Dante commisura, condensa, esprime, sublima tutta la sua religiosita.” See also pp. 122 ff.

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in the class wanted to know what a friar was. One thing led to another, and before I knew it I had volunteered to give a slide lecture on the Assisi frescoes as the quickest entry into the world of Francis and the Franciscans. I do not remember exactly what I said, although I am sure that I tried to make as many cross references to Dante as possible in the lecture, and I am sure that I grew more and more animated as the lecture went on. But I do remember two comments that Professor Cherchi made. First, he asked me if I was a Franciscan. I confessed to him then as I confess to you now that I am not now nor ever have been a member of the Franciscan order. I thought it an odd question. The subtext seemed to be that only a Franciscan would want to get himself so worked up about Francis and things Franciscan. Second, he said (matter-of-factly rather than dismissively) that of course there was no real Franciscan influence to be found in the Commedia, and if I am not misremembering said something as well about the purely Thomistic basis of Dante’s thought. I am not sure I drew the lesson immediately, but the lesson was clearly there to be drawn. What was evident to me to the point of being self-evident, namely that there was a large and pervasive Franciscan influence in the poem (an influence the magnitude of which I was myself not yet fully aware of at the time), was not only not self-evident to a large and learned body of scholars, it was a position that did not even register on their collective scholarly radar screen. Had I come to Dante in a more traditional way, that is, had I come to Dante together with some knowledge of the daunting tradition of Dante commentary that has accompanied the poem in its almost seven-hundred year journey to the present, I could have done much more to account for the discrepancy. But had I come to Dante that way, I probably would not have noticed Francis either. I had taken another route. I am a medievalist who happens to teach in an English department. That is the line I give nowadays when somebody asks me about my field. When I got out of graduate school with my newly minted PhD, complete with my dissertation on Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, my answer to that same question would have been very different. I teach in an English department and I happen to have a field in the Middle Ages. That was certainly how I saw myself and, equally important, that is how I advertised myself for the job market. I earnestly told all those schools I applied to that I was fully capable of teaching courses in the Renaissance (more or less true),

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the eighteenth century (a bit of a stretch), and modern American Literature (a very long stretch), listing all the areas of my comprehensive exams. Dante was the first to change that self-perception. Here as in so much else he has a lot to answer for. My second year of teaching I put together a kind of European medieval masterpieces course, and allowed something like six weeks for Dante. Six weeks of Dante is a tease, and by the end of the course I wanted much more. I wanted Dante to have his own course, at the very least. Francis was the second. During the summer of 1973 I studied at Princeton in an NEH seminar conducted by John Fleming. Fleming was putting the finishing touches on An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages at the time, and among the many things that I learned that summer, none was more important than an understanding of how the history of medieval vernacular literature in the high Middle Ages was inextricably mixed with the story of Francis and his followers.3 Though the immediate application in that seminar was to Chaucer and to Middle English Literature, I was no less eager from then on to have Francis as a companion than to have Dante. And soon I had the opportunity to bring the two of them together. In the summer of 1975, Bill Cook and I, who had by that time begun what has now been a thirty-year team-teaching collaboration, taught a course in Italy called the Age of Dante, a variation of the course that we had put on the books in our home institution the previous year, and that we continue to teach together. We came to Assisi. We taught the frescoes, in themselves and as they related to the Commedia as we then understood it. We wrote an article on the relationship between the frescoes and their source in Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior.4 Though in different directions, we were both hooked, and hooked we remain. I would like to examine some key places in the Commedia which are richer if we view them in the light of the art of Assisi, that is to say, where the art of Assisi can be a genuine help in the interpretation of the poem. Then I will try to draw some conclusions from this juxtaposition.

3 John V. Fleming, An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1977). 4 Ronald Herzman and William R. Cook, “Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis and the Frescoes in the Church of San Francesco: A Study in Medieval Aesthetics,” Franziskanische Studien 59 (1977): 29–37.

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ronald b. herzman Lady Poverty

The two most important aspects of the life of Francis of Assisi, as narrated by Thomas Aquinas in Canto 11 of the Paradiso, are his reception of the stigmata, and his marriage to Lady Poverty. In portraying the reception of the stigmata, Dante carefully follows what is his major source throughout the eighty line “biographical” masterpiece of compression and synthesis, Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior. Indeed it can be shown that a good deal of the richness of Dante in these lines owes an enormous amount to the richness of Bonaventure. For one example, the way in which the stigmata are described as the final seal which God places on the body of Francis is taken by Dante directly from Bonaventure. The thematic importance of Francis himself as a document to be read and therefore as the defining “rule” for the order is no less present in Bonaventure than in Dante.5 Given this deep and thoughtful appropriation of Bonaventure, parallel to other magisterial texts such as Virgil’s Aeneid and even scripture that Dante appropriates in similarly precise fashion, it is all the more interesting that the Marriage to Lady Poverty is not taken from Bonaventure. It is not taken from Bonaventure because it is not in Bonaventure. Scholars have had various takes on this interesting fact. The question has at least been asked, and by no less an authority than Erich Auerbach, whether Dante has in fact seen the art of Assisi, where one finds in the lower church the splendid allegory of Francis’s marriage to lady Poverty.6 But before returning to the artistic depiction and its possible relevance to the life of Francis presented in Paradiso, several textual observations are in order. The most frequently adduced verbal source for the marriage of Francis to Lady Poverty is the Sacrum Commercium, a work which John Fleming describes as “the sin5 As I have previously written in this regard, “Dante incorporates and extends what is central to Bonaventure: Francis has become a document to be read, a document written by God and authenticated by the seal which is at the same time proof of his likeness to the crucified Christ. This is important not only because of what Dante has to say about Francis, significant as that is. For in this way of reading, Francis has become for the reader a more explicit, more self-conscious embodiment of what Dante would have us see in the Commedia as a whole—each character and event a document written by the hand of God, and to be read at continually deepening levels by the reader.” (“Dante and Francis,” Franciscan Studies 42 [1982]: 107.) 6 “St. Francis in Dante’s Commedia,” Italica 22 (1945): 166–79.


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gle most brilliant example of the simple but lapidary allegory which was to become a major mode of spiritual writing in the later Middle Ages.”7 In a study which deals exhaustively with sources and possible sources for the entire depiction of Francis, Giuseppe Santarelli lists other possible sources as well, including the Arbor Vite Crucifixis Jesu.8 I think it is interesting to note that while these sources present us with the allegorized virtue of poverty, emphasize the importance of the virtue of poverty, and indeed give suggestions about poverty that help explain Dante’s foregrounding of that virtue in his depiction of Francis, the mystical marriage between Dante and Poverty that is described in Paradiso is in fact nowhere present in the Sacrum Commercium: the source that is almost universally adduced for the marriage of Francis and Lady Poverty contains no such scene. The Sacrum Commercium clearly is important to Dante. In Fleming’s words, it “advances evangelical poverty as the defining characteristic of theological perfection since the beginning of the world through the sapiential Christ,”9 and Dante clearly wants to grant poverty a no less exalted place in his own hierarchy of virtues, Franciscan or otherwise. Moreover, I think one could make the case that Dante does use the work directly. These points can be made more convincingly by looking first at the text from Paradiso. Non era ancor molto lontan da l’orto, ch’el comminciò a far sentir la terra de la sua virtute alcun conforto; che per tal donna, giovinetto, in guerra del padre corse, a cui, come a la morte, la porta del piacer nessun diserra e dinanzi a la sua spirital corte et coram patre le si fece unito; poscia di dì in dì l’annò più forte. Questa, privata del primo marito,

7 Fleming, p. 78. For the problematic issues of dating and authorship see Fleming and also the more recent analysis to be found in Regis J. Armstrong, Wayne Hellmann, and William Short, eds., Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Vol. I: The Saint (New York, 1999), pp. 523–528. The text, translated as The Sacred Exchange Between Francis and Lady Poverty is found on pp. 529–554. Fleming’s discussion of the literary merits of the Sacrum Commercium argues for it as work altogether worthy to grab the attention of Dante. 8 Giuseppe Santarelli, S. Francesco in Dante (Milano, 1969), pp. 33–55. Santarelli includes a bibliography “sui rapporti Dante-San Francesco,” pp. 57–63. 9 Fleming, p. 79.

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ronald b. herzman millecent’ anni e più dispetta e scura fino a costui se stette sanza invito; ne valse udir che la trovò sicura con Amiclate, al suon de la sua voce, colui ch’a tutto ’l mondo fé paura; né valse esser costante né feroce, sì che, dove Maria rimase giuso, ella con Cristo pianse in su la croce. (He was not yet very far from his rising when he began to make the earth feel, from his great virtue, a certain strengthening; for, while still a youth, he rushed into strife against his father for such a lady, to whom, as to death, none willingly unlocks the door; and before his spiritual court et coram patre he was joined to her, and thereafter, from day to day, he loved her ever more ardently. She, bereft of her first husband, for eleven hundred years and more, despised and obscure, remained unwooed till he came; nor had it availed to hear that he who caused fear to all the world found her undisturbed with Amyclas at the sound of his voice; nor had it availed to have been constant and undaunted so that, where Mary remained below, she wept with Christ upon the cross. Par. 11. 55–72.)10

Someone who wanted to connect the two texts would note the following: first, each gives a kind of allegorized history of the virtue of poverty, Dante’s compressed version following the general contours of the more expansive version which is largely the entire subject of the Sacrum Commercium. Second, even though as I have mentioned there is no scene which actually depicts the marriage of Francis and Lady Poverty, the keystone of Dante’s discussion, there are suggestions in the Sacrum Commercium of a marriage between poverty and, in Fleming’s words, “the sapiental Christ.”11 Since Christ was the first bridegroom of poverty in Dante’s allegorized history, this might be of real significance. Francis, speaking of poverty and quoting Psalm 110 and Isaiah, says that God “adorned you as a bride with a crown, exalting you above the heights of the clouds.”12 That marriage, implied in the Franciscan text but made explicit by Dante, was consummated in Dante’s version on the cross. The text of the Sacrum Commercium tells us that, “And on that cross, his body stripped, his

10

Text and translation of the Commedia are from the edition of Charles S. Singleton (Princeton, 1970–75). 11 Fleming, p. 79. 12 Early Documents, I:535. Italics in the text represent the quotations from Scripture.


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arms outstretched, his hands and feet pierced, you suffered with him, so that nothing would appear more glorious in him than you.”13 Although it takes a good deal of imagination and verbal dexterity to get from the Sacrum Commercium to Paradiso, from these metaphorical suggestions to an actual marriage, it is exactly the kind of imaginative recreation that Dante does so well throughout the Commedia. So if nothing else, what the two texts have in common is an exaltation of poverty, an allegorization of the history of Lady Poverty, and the fact the Christ is wedded to poverty. Some critics have seen the introduction of the allegory of Lady Poverty into the life of Francis as Dante portrays it in Paradiso as a kind of literary highjacking, that is to say, by making the marriage of Francis to Lady Poverty as central as he does to this portrayal— more central than its portrayal in Bonaventure—Dante ignores other important aspects of the life of Francis.14 I think this misses the point. It is one thing to say that Dante exalts poverty as the chief Franciscan virtue. It is another to say that he does this at the expense of a more complete life of Francis. In this as in so much else, Dante’s instinct for synthesis is at the heart of the issue. Dante is not asking us to choose. Rather, he is telling us that we can have both— he does indeed foreground poverty, but he also does a remarkable job of synthesizing so many of the most important elements in Bonvaventure’s sophisticated theological program of the Legenda Maior. His Francis is the Francis of the Legenda Maior in many ways. As I have argued elsewhere, the Francis whom the pilgrim encounters in the Heaven of the Sun in Canto 11 of Paradise is the apocalyptic Francis of Bonaventure, who is a figure of renovatio within the Church and the angel of the sixth seal. Dante appropriates this apocalyptic energy for his portrayal and shows how the apocalyptic significance of Francis reaches a climax in his depiction of the stigmatization, wherein Francis has incorporated into his body the apocalyptic seal of the living God.15 Dante takes such care with the Francis of the Legenda Maior in part no doubt because he wants to be true to Francis, accepting Bonaventure’s assessment of Francis as a saint

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Early Documents, I:536. See, for example, the discussion in Santarelli. 15 Ronald B. Herzman, “Dante and the Apocalypse,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, eds. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca, 1992), pp. 398–413. 14

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among saints, and accepting as well Bonaventure’s appropriation of apocalyptic spirituality as the chief way in which Francis’ exalted place in the history of salvation is made manifest. Dante clearly wants this Francis to be his Francis. But there is perhaps a more important issue involved here. This particular version of Francis is here because of what he has to teach Dante. This Francis is a model for Dante, a positive model for the pilgrim on his journey toward conversion and perfection and a positive model for Dante in his coming to understand his own vocation as a prophetic poet. Without the virtues of Francis, Dante will be unable to turn his exile into vision. Dante looks to Francis because like Francis, he is not a priest, but he will be called to a priestly function, no less than Francis, though in a different way, Dante must speak for reform in the church. And just as Francis is the key figure in the vernacularization and fraternalization of piety, Dante must learn from the Francis of Paradiso 11 to see himself as a key figure in the vernacularization and fraternalization of poetry. As Francis is sealed with the seal of the living God in the Heaven of the Sun, Dante will be sealed with the prophet’s mantle in the Circle of Mars. As Francis’ own body becomes a text to be read, so also does Dante want the text of his poem to be authenticated by the sealing of his experience in Paradise. As I have previously phrased it: . . . Francis himself is a sealed document and thus can be understood as a more explicit and self-conscious embodiment of what the poet would have us see in the Commedia as a whole: each character and event a document written by the hand of God, to be read at continually deepening levels. The typology of conversion, relating, as it does, Francis’ life to Dante’s, would affirm that the character about whom this is most emphatically and definitively true is Dante the pilgrim himself. To learn humility, poverty, and peacemaking from Francis is thus to learn how to turn himself into a book to be written by his readers.16

This also explains why Dante foregrounds the virtue of poverty to the extent that he does. No question of its importance to Francis. But equally important is its importance to Dante. The virtue of poverty is important to Dante precisely because it is the virtue, more than any other, that Dante needs to take with him into exile. What Francis embraced voluntarily, embraced in the mystical marriage 16

Ibid., p. 407.


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that he undergoes when he strips himself naked in the presence of his father, Dante will be forced to embrace by circumstance. When Francis speaks of poverty as powerlessness, he is speaking to the Dante who will have to endure the powerlessness of exile so movingly described in the Heaven of Mars, when he is told by his greatgreat-grandfather of the salty bread of exile. And Poverty, especially the poverty of the Church that is described here in Paradiso 11, is for Dante the key to the reform of the church which is the most important part of his prophetic program. For Dante, poverty is the solution to the problem that he speaks of with such prophetic fervor in such places as Inferno 19 with its condemnation of the simoniac popes. This is a subject that can only be touched on lightly here, and to touch on it I will make two comments that will at least point in a direction where much work still needs to be done. The first is that the Donation of Constantine is in fact directly related by inversion to the marriage of Francis and lady Poverty by Dante himself. The second is that the text of the Sacrum Commercium makes an inverse connection between the Donation of Constantine and Poverty. Dante marks the Donation of Constantine, the moment when the Church became wealthy, as the key event in the deterioration of the church from its original ideals in Inferno 19, the canto in which simoniac popes who have used their office to get rich are being punished. For Dante, the corruption of the church which culminates in the figure of Boniface VIII begins with Constantine. In describing the point when the church “officially” becomes wealthy, Dante uses the language of marriage by suggesting that the donation itself is a dowry. (“Ahi, Costatin, di quanto mal fu matre, non la tua conversion, ma quella dote che da te prese il primo ricco patre!”) “Ah, Constantine, of how much ill was mother, not your conversion, but that dowry which the first rich father took from you” (Inf. 19.115–117).

There is more than a suggestion in the text that from this time forward, the popes are implicitly married to another bride in addition to the church: wealth. The dowry has become more important to the popes than the Church itself, and so has become a kind of false or surrogate bride for the vicars of Christ. That this transfer is accompanied by apocalyptic imagery in Dante’s telling in Inferno 19 should not be surprising, because in Dante’s presentation of church history

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at the end of the Purgatorio, the Donation of Constantine is portrayed as the third status ecclesiae in the apocalyptically charged list of seven tribulations suffered by the church throughout the history that begins with the Incarnation and ends with the last judgment.17 Thus, when Francis marries Lady Poverty in Paradiso 11, that marriage is part of an unfolding history of the Church. The Poverty of Francis can be seen as the solution, or perhaps better, a blueprint for the solution, to the problem created by papal wealth and power. The stripping of Francis and his marriage to Lady Poverty can be read as a rewriting in bono of the apocalyptically charged Donation of Constantine. Boniface represents the Constantinian moment carried to its furthest extreme. Francis represents the possibility of resisting and perhaps even undoing that moment and its tragic consequences. Given this complicated appropriation of Lady Poverty by Dante, the connection drawn between Poverty and the Donation of Constantine in the Sacrum Commercium is at the very least interesting. Speaking in her own voice, Poverty states: “Unfortunately, peace was made, and that peace was worse than any war. At its beginning, few were sealed, in its middle fewer, and at its conclusion, fewer still. My bitterness is certainly most bitter during a peace in which everyone flees from me, drives me away, does not need me, and abandons me. This is a peace crafted for me by my enemies, not by my own, by outsiders, not by my children.”18 What are we to conclude about the presence of Poverty in Dante’s description in the life of Francis? While it is certainly true that Dante makes use of the figure of Poverty in a way that foregrounds its importance as the Franciscan virtue, and that this foregrounding has as much to do with Dante’s agenda as with the figure of Francis himself, it is also true that the importance of the figure of poverty as Dante reconfigures and reimagines her in Paradiso 11 takes most of her energy from the theology of Bonaventure which Dante so carefully appropriates and makes the key to any understanding of Francis. He grafts the plant of Poverty on the tree of the cross that Bonaventure does so much

17 A more complete version of this argument can be found in Ronald B. Herzman, “From Francis to Solomon: Eschatology in the Sun,” in Dante For the New Millennium, eds. Teodolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Story (New York, 2003), pp. 320–333. 18 Early Documents, I:541. As the note to this passage succinctly puts it, “This is a negative interpretation of the peace of Constantine in 315 understood as an enrichment of the Church which weakened its sensitivity to poverty.”


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to theologize in the Legenda Maior. Dante’s amazing instinct for synthesis in the Commedia finds a counterpart in the Basilica of Assisi. The scene of Francis stripping himself naked in the presence of his father is part of the larger plan of the upper church, where the twenty-eight frescoes form a magnificent reinterpretation of Francis’ life as interpreted by Bonaventure. The marriage of Francis to Lady Poverty in the lower church depicts in allegorical form another interpretation of the meaning of Franciscan poverty. Different interpretations and indeed different kinds of interpretations exist together in the same edifice, without canceling each other out. Similarly, the verbal “space” of the Commedia allows different kinds of sources to exist together19 Even if Dante never saw Assisi, the juxtaposition of these two interpretations of who Francis is in the Basilica provides a great help in understanding the complexity of Dante’s treatment of Francis in the Commedia. Dante’s portrayal of Francis much more closely parallels the Basilica in Assisi than any combination of verbal sources that we have so far discovered. How far this juxtaposition can be used to argue that Dante did in fact know the Basilica perhaps depends on other evidence that can be marshaled in support of this proposition.

The Damnation of Guido da Montefeltro In Inferno 19, the simoniac popes who have used their spiritual office to become rich are given the punishment they so clearly deserve. But the most serious offender in this sin is actually alive in 1300, the fictional date of Dante’s pilgrimage. Rather than being “physically” present, his anticipated place in hell is guaranteed by his predecessor in simony Nicholas III. Pope Boniface VIII is the pope Dante singles out as the simoniac’s simoniac.20 In Inferno 27, we are able to see the serious consequences of this ill-gotten papal wealth:

19 The generous and fruitful relationship between parts and the whole is one of the key themes of the Circle of the Sun in Paradiso, wherein the life of Francis is to be found. 20 Although Dante calls Boniface’s successor in simony, Clement V (r. 1305–1314) a “lawless shepherd of even uglier deeds” (cf. Inferno 19.82–87) because of his willingness to turn the papacy into little more than a plaything of the French monarchy, both within the structure of Inferno 19 and in his other appearances in the

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it has provided the resources necessary for Boniface VIII to muster the powerful armies that allow him to make war on his enemies. From one point of view then, Canto 27 is a continuation of the story of papal wealth that leads us finally to the marriage of Francis and Lady Poverty in Paradiso as the antidote for that wealth. It is a story in which the frescoes in the upper church in Assisi may also play a part: the figure whom the pilgrim encounters in this Canto is Guido da Montefeltro, who among other things ended his earthly career not only as a friar, but more interestingly as a friar who entered the order in Assisi and spent his last years there. The biographical account that Guido tells has an interesting echo in one of the posthumous miracle scenes decorating the Upper Church of the Basilica, the story of a woman raised from the dead by the intercession of Francis. Guido’s story too ends with an account of an encounter with Francis after death. Unlike the woman in the fresco, however, even Francis’ intercession is unable to save him, and a demon comes to carry him off to his richly-deserved place in the Inferno. His self-presentation ends with a peculiar combination of indignation and puzzlement, as if it were some kind of cosmic bookkeeping error that has kept him from his rightful place in heaven in the company of Francis. These are emotions not shared by the reader, however, who sees in Guido a conspicuously strong example of the self-deception that characterizes all the inhabitants of Inferno. After a life spent deceiving others, Guido is deceived himself (by no less a figure than Pope Boniface) and equally important is self-deceived into thinking he is on his way to salvation. To see the part that the Assisi fresco might play in this story, it is necessary to look at the encounter between Guido and Dante in the bolgia of the false-counsellors with some care. The story he tells about what happens to his soul after death, in which he imagines for himself the happy ending of the Assisi fresco, is the climax of a story of conversion and apostasy in which Francis has a very important cameo appearance. Guido tells us that he (mis)spent most of his life up to no good in various military stratagems done from a distance.

Commedia, Boniface provides the focus for much more of Dante’s energy—and his wrath.


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Io fui uom d’arme, e poi fui cordigliero, credendomi, sì cinto, fare ammenda; e certo il creder mio venìa intero, se non fosse il gran prete, a cui mal prenda!, che mi rimise ne le prime colpe; e come e quare, voglio che m’intenda Mentre ch’io forma fui d’ossa e di polpe che la madre me diè, l’opere mie non furon leonine, ma di volpe. Li accorgimenti e le coperte vie io seppi tutte, e sì menai lor arte ch’al fine de la terra il suono uscie. ( I was a man of arms, and then a corded friar, trusting, so girt, to make amends; and certainly my hope would have come full, but for the High Priest—may ill befall him!—who set me back in my first sins: and how and wherefore I would have you hear from me. While I was of the form of flesh my mother gave me, my deeds were not those of the lion but of the fox. I knew all wiles and covert ways, and plied the art of them so well that to the ends of the earth their sound went forth. Inf. 27. 67–78).

Then, as the journey of his life is coming to an end, he decides that a conversion would be in order. Quando me vidi giunto in quella parte di mia etade ove ciascum dovrebbe calar le vele e raccoglier le sarte, ciò che pria mi piacea, allor m’increbbe, e pentuto e confesso mi rendei; ahi miser lasso! e giovato sarebbe. (When I saw myself come to that part of my life when every man should lower the sails and coil up the ropes, that which before had pleased me grieved me then, and with repentance and confession I turned friar, and—woe is me—it would have availed. Inf. 27. 78–84).

When Dante writes about Guido earlier in his career in the Convivio, he treats the conversion as genuine, and indeed uses the conversion as a model for old age. The post-conversion life of Guido that he describes toward the end of Inferno 27 thus becomes a very interesting palinode, a recantation of a former position that Dante seems to have held. Indeed, Guido’s self-presentation in Inferno echoes the language that Dante had used earlier to describe him. How wretched and base you are, who rush into this port under full sail, and on the very spot where you ought to come to rest after your labours are driven to destruction by the very force of the wind; you

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ronald b. herzman wreck yourselves on the very spot to which you have been journeying for so long! Certainly, noble Sir Lancelot did not want to enter port under full sail, nor did our most noble fellow Italian, Guido da Montefeltro. These noble people did indeed lower the sails of their worldly activities; in their advanced age, they dedicated themselves to a religious life, and put aside all worldly delight and activity.21

Not surprisingly, the addition to the story in Inferno is in many ways the focus of Dante’s depiction of Guido. As Canto 27 presents it, Guido is asked by no less a figure than Boniface VIII to help him destroy his enemies, the Colonna family, who have established a military stronghold for themselves in the city of Palestrina.22 Guido hesitates, since giving such advice would bring him back to his old sinful ways and undo the “conversion” he has made. But Boniface makes him an offer he cannot refuse: he offers him absolution in advance. Accepting the offer, Guido gives the advice he was asked to give (which calls for a little treachery on Boniface’s part), and Boniface is able to defeat his enemies. Guido dies, and at least in his own version of the story, Francis comes to him to carry his soul to heaven where it is intercepted by a demon, who points out the logical and theological impossibility of receiving absolution in advance. Francesco venne poi, com’ io fu morto, per me: ma un d’i neri cherubini li disse: ‘non portar; non mi far torto, Venir se ne dee giù tra ‘miei mischini perché diede ’l consglio frodolente, dal qualie in qua stato li sono a’ crini; ch’assolver non si può chi non si pente, né pentere e volere insieme puossi per la contradizion che nol consente.’ (Then, when I died, Francis came for me; but one of the black Cherubim said to him, ‘Do not take him, wrong me not! He must come down among my minions because he gave the fraudulent counsel, since which till now I have been at his hair; for he who repents not cannot be absolved, nor is it possible to repent of a thing and to will it at the same time, for the contradiction does not allow it. Inf. 27. 112–120)

21 4.28.8. I quote from the Ryan translation: Dante, The Banquet, trans. Christopher Ryan (Stanford, 1989), p. 196. 22 For a very good description of the historical background of this event, see the account in David Burr’s The Spiritual Franciscans (University Park, PA, 2001), pp. 102–107.


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A good place to begin in discussing this passage is simply to register the shock that comes when we notice that a devil is rebuking Francis. And the implications of this rebuke continue the shock: the devil turns out to be the best theologian in the story, which can be read as a kind of grim joke with a grim punch line: there is a Franciscan Friar (Guido), a Pope (Boniface), and a devil. Which one of them understands the mechanism of penance? The devil, of course. What are we to make of this? Whether we look at this as a cautionary tale about the sorry state of the spiritual economy in Dante’s time or as a story about how Guido, the great deceiver, was himself deceived by his failure to understand the most basic aspects of penance—that one needs to be sorry for one’s sins—our interpretation can be aided considerably by taking a look at the Assisi frescoes, and in particular the third of the four scenes of posthumous miracles that complete the presentation of the life of Francis. In this scene, a woman who has been miraculously raised from the dead through the intercession of Francis is depicted going to Confession. She is in the center of the room, in the process of confessing her sins to a friar. To the right and to the left of the woman are the mourners and those who have come to perform the funeral rites. Above the woman, an angel, coming for the soul of the woman, drives away a demon, who was presumably waiting around to pick up his prey, an unrepentant sinner. In the upper left-hand corner, Francis kneels in intercession before Christ. Although they are combined very differently, one notices how many Dantesque elements are there in the Assisi fresco: a posthumous struggle for the salvation of a soul, the appearance of Francis, the sacrament of penance, the appearance of a demon. In addition to the obvious point that Francis remains present to us as a powerful intercessor, this scene clearly illustrates what is one of the major themes of the Assisi frescoes, the importance of repentance as a central part of Francis’ life and Francis’ message, and illustrates as well the fact that in the present, repentance can best be effected by the sacramental system of the church though auricular confession. (Fresco 16, the death of the Knight of Celano, is perhaps the most emphatic depiction of that theme in the Assisi cycle.) Against this background, the possibility of seeing Dante’s depiction of the damnation of Guido as a deliberate reconfiguration of this scene makes a great deal of sense. Seen in this context, the damnation of Guido suggests, first of all, that playing fast and loose with the rules of the sacrament of penance—

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both on the part of Guido and on the part of Boniface VIII—is a particular offense against both the letter and the spirit of Francis’ life. Guido’s presumption, in both our ordinary sense of the word and in the strictly theological sense of the word as well, can be measured against a scene which shows a merciful Francis pleading before an even more merciful God. Guido assumes that such mercy will be available to him as well, and the fact that this mercy is not available is to see that Guido has made himself impervious to God’s mercy. Francis’ intercession is there, ready and waiting for those who really want it, but Guido’s damnation can be explained by the fact that he does not really want it, despite the fact that he has put on a Franciscan habit. The Guido created by Dante is a Guido who has lived the life of a tactician for so long that he can only see reality in terms of stratagems. Absolution given in advance is simply one more stratagem. He believes that he is able to “strategize” his way into heaven, not realizing that he has been deceived by Boniface with the same ease that he has deceived others throughout his life. His own puzzlement at the way the story ends can be explained, then, by the internal logic of the life he has led. He has led a life of the letter rather than the spirit. The best date for the completion of the frescoes of the Upper Church in the Basilica is 1291–1292.23 When Guido da Montefeltro became a Franciscan, he entered the order in Assisi and lived at the Franciscan house attached to the Basilica from 1296 until his death in 1298, two years before the fictional date of the poem. Evidence that Dante himself saw the frescoes is that Guido—that is to say the Guido that Dante created, the Guido who sees the letter but not the spirit—would have seen the frescoes daily, and would have read this fresco in a totally un-Franciscan way: as a guarantee of his own salvation, rather than as the warning that is implicit in a call to repentance. This is perhaps the best explanation for why he thinks he has been cheated out of heaven: he knows how the story is supposed to come out. These are not simply Franciscan concerns: Dante is also interested in the importance of penance and conversion as part of his larger 23 For the current argument on the dating of the frescoes in the Upper Church, see William R. Cook, Images of St. Francis in Painting, Stone, and Glass from the Earliest Images to ca. 1320 in Italy: A Catalogue (Florence, 2000), p. 49. So long as (Italian) scholars hold on to Giotto as the painter of the frescoes in the Upper Basilica, there are going to be later dates suggested.


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concerns. Perhaps the best way I can make this point is by referring to a question that I always ask my sophomore Humanities students as we begin our study of the Inferno: “Why are these souls in hell?” They almost invariably answer: “because they are guilty of serious sins.” To which I reply, “But the souls we find in purgatory and in heaven have also committed serious sins.” At that point, the light bulb goes on, and my students understand that the souls in hell are those who have committed serious sins and who have not repented. I make this point now, because I think Dante uses Guido as an important part of an extended discourse throughout the Commedia about the possibility and the nature of true repentance. We find out something true about the nature of penance by looking at its corruption in Canto 27. And it is not an accident that another attempt of a devil to carry off a soul described by Dante has as its protagonist the son of Guido, Buonconte da Montefeltro. Unlike his father, Buonconte’s sins are not those of a fox, but rather those of a lion. He dies in battle, at the battle of Compaldino. There, he makes a deathbed conversion. Là ‘ve ’l vocabol suo diventa vano, arrivaa’ io forato ne la gola, fuggendo a piede a sanguinando il piano Quivi perdei la vista e la parola; nel nome di Maria fini’, e quivi caddi, e rimase la mia carne sola. Io dirò il vero, e tu ’l ridì tra’ vivi; L’angel de Dio me prese, e quel d’inferno gridava: O tu del ciel, perché mi privi? Tu te ne portí di costui l’eterno Per una lagrimata che ’l mi toglie; Ma io farò de l’altro altro governo. (To the place where its name is lost I came, wounded in the throat, flying on foot and bloodying the plain. There I lost my sight and speech. I ended on the name of Mary, and there I fell, and my flesh remained alone. I will tell the truth and do you repeat it among the living. The angel of God took me, and he from hell cried, “O you from heaven, why do you rob me? You carry with you the eternal part of him for one little tear with takes him from me, but of the rest I will make other disposal! Purg. 5.97–108).

What is denied to the father is given to the son. Or, to put it in more general terms, insincere repentance, even when accompanied by the absolution of a pope, leads to hell. Sincere repentance, even if made at the moment of death by a very great sinner, and made

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literally on the run, leads to purgatory and ultimately to heaven. The twin tableaux of father and son, damned and saved by their own choices, provide a treatment of the concept of repentance that is both theologically and dramatically satisfying. In the purgatorial version of this posthumous psychomachia, some of the dramatis personae of the Assisi fresco have been reassembled and recombined, and indeed, in terms of the result of the story, Purgatory 5 more clearly resembles the fresco than its inversion in Inferno 27, in that as in Assisi, the devil is driven away by the good angel, who here claims the soul of Buonconte. The depiction of the life of Francis in the frescoes in the Upper Basilica in Assisi have as their source Bonaventure’s Major Life of Francis.24 So too does Dante’s depiction of the Life of Francis in Paradiso 11. It is therefore important to note that in the miracle story of the posthumous confession, the elements that have the most to say to Dante are the elaborations by the painter of the frescoes that allow it to depart significantly from its verbal source. Bonaventure describes the scene as follows: There was a woman in Monte Morano near Benevento who clung to Saint Francis with special devotion, and she went the way of all flesh. The clergy came at night with their psalters to sing the wake and vigils. Suddenly, in the sight of all, the woman sat up in bed and called to one of them, a priest who was her godfather, “I want to confess. Father, hear my sin! I have indeed died, and was destined for a harsh prison because I never confessed the sin I will reveal to you. But Saint Francis prayed for me as I served him with a devout spirit while I was alive. I have now been permitted to return to my body so that after confessing my sin I might merit eternal life. So now, as all of you watch, after I reveal that to you I will hurry off to my promised rest.” She then shakily confessed to the shaken priest, and after receiving absolution, composed herself peacefully on the bed and happily fell asleep in the lord.25

The elements that are combined and recombined in Dante’s twopart posthumous account in Inferno 27 and Purgatorio 5 are conspicuously absent from the verbal presentation in Bonaventure. It is 24 Even to the extent that the frescoes include sections from the text of Bonaventure as descriptive captions. 25 Regis Armstrong, Wayne Hellmann, and William Short, eds. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Vol. II: The Prophet (New York, 2000), pp. 655–656.


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worth pointing out in passing that this is a fairly striking demonstration of the degree to which the Assisi frescoes are not simply a representation of Bonaventure but are a reinterpretation of him as well. Readers of Dante take as a given the numerical precision of the Commedia. Since the harmony of the universe itself was thought to be expressed in terms of certain mathematical ratios, Dante, writing in imitation of the Book of the Universe, incorporates among other mathematical ideas some fairly precise numerical correspondences within the internal structure of the Commedia, and also numerical correspondences between portions of the Commedia and those other texts on which he draws so energetically and systematically. So for example, it has often been noted that canto 6 of Inferno deals with Florentine politics; canto 6 of the Purgatorio deals with the politics of the Italian peninsula; and canto 6 of the Paradiso provides a political history of the entire Roman Empire from its founding until the time of Dante himself. It has also been noted that the history of the empire that is provided for Dante the pilgrim in Paradiso 6 by the emperor Justiniano, is a rewriting and an updating of the history of Rome which Aeneas hears from his father in his trip to the underworld in the sixth book of the Aeneid. Six, in the numerical tradition from which Dante drew, was considered to be the number of political completeness, and so Dante takes advantage of this association by linking three political cantos within the text of the Commedia with the poem that is in many ways the most important source of his political ideology. Even readers of the Commedia who routinely expect to find this kind of correspondence when encountering the poem sometimes are astonished when noticing the precision with which Dante makes such connections. Although Dante is a poet who teaches his careful readers that they are more likely to underestimate his genius than overestimate it, there are points where a particular connection is a matter for genuine debate: is it the inevitable result of Dante’s surpassing instinct for synthesis and his mind-boggling ability to see parts in their relationship to wholes? Or is it a fortuitous linkage that depends more on the ingenuity of the observer than anything that Dante could possibly have orchestrated? What are we to make of the fact that Guido da Montafeltro appears in canto 27 of the Inferno, and that the posthumous miracle which I have put forth as a possible source for Dante’s portrayal of Guido appears in the

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twenty-seventh fresco of the cycle?26 Is even Dante that good? This is a discovery that will only speak to the converted, and in mentioning it, I should also mention that I made the connection in situ while actually pondering the fresco and its possible connection with Dante. So for me, having already thought about one in terms of the other, the numerical correspondence first clicked and then gave me the thrill that comes when things fall into place. At the very least, it needs to be mentioned. A different way of answering the question that began this essay is also possible. Did Dante know the art of Assisi? Given his interest in things Franciscan, and given what we know about where he did travel, the odds would certainly be stacked against his not being there at some point. Knowing for example that Dante went to Rome, and knowing the route to Rome by way of the Via Francigena, a stop-off at Assisi would be extremely likely, especially given his interest in things Franciscan.27 But the thrust of this essay has not been so much about establishing the proof for his visit as to assume it. Begging the question may seem like a conspicuously unscholarly way to write about the issue. But my deeper intent has been to show that the kind of things that one does in situ in a location like the Basilica are also an enormously fruitful way of understanding the Commedia. More specifically, the Francis-ness of the Basilica is a good way of seeing what Dante is up to, not simply in his appropriation of Francis and Francis’ vision into the poem, but also in the way Dante goes about his business as a poet—how he makes and develops his connections, and how he is able to write a poem that allows readers at so many points to say “both/and” rather than “either/or.” T.S. Eliot has an appropriate quotation on the relationship between Dante’s local and universal qualities: “He is the least local [European poet]—and yet that statement must be protected by saying that he did not become ‘the least provincial’ by ceasing to be local. No one is more local.”28 Eliot is surely right, but it is hard to adequately

26 There can be no dispute about the numbering, since the order in which the twenty eight frescoes are to be viewed is clear and has never been in dispute. 27 For Dante’s post-exilic journeys, see Petrocchi, ch. 10. For a succinct English account of the known facts of Dante’s life, see Giuseppe Mazzotta, “Life of Dante,” in The Cambridge Companion to Dante, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 1–13. 28 T.S. Eliot, “A Talk on Dante” in Dante in America: The First Two Centuries, ed. A. Bartlett Giamatti (Binghamton, NY, 1983), p. 227.


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lock on to the local qualities of the Commedia given the intervention of seven centuries. An extensive commentary tradition that dates back to Dante’s own generation surely helps. But spending time, a great deal of time, in the Basilica at Assisi with a copy of the Commedia would surely help as well, and we need to do much more of that. I would like to end with the testimony of another great follower of Francis, the fifteenth-century preacher and saint, Bernardino of Siena. Given the thrust of this essay, it is interesting to note that in the twenty-third penitential sermon preached by Bernardino in the Campo of Siena in 1427, in speaking on questions of true versus false repentance, he quotes directly from the Guido da Montefeltro episode in Inferno 27, the lines spoken to Guido by the devil on the nature of true repentance, and then, in glossing the text of Dante presents a kind of psychomachia of grace within the individual soul which shows that he well understood his model: Assolver non si puo chi non si pente; ne pentere e volere insieme puossi, per la contradizion ch nol consente. (. . . nor is it possible to repent of a thing and to will it at the same time, for the contradiction does not allow it. Inf. 27.118–120)29

That Bernardino quotes Dante should not be surprising, He studied Dante intensively at Siena before undertaking his studies of the Bible, patristics, and canon law.30 And this study bore fruit. As Iris Origo has pointed out, “[Bernardino] was plainly well acquainted with Dante, for he not only often quoted from him, but also sometimes— perhaps half-unconsciously—used sentences of which the rhythm or content have a vague Dantesque echo, and he referred to both him and Petrarch as writers ‘who did most notable things, which should greatly be commended.’ ”31 In this passage, Bernardino shows his devotion to Francis by showing his knowledge of Dante. Perhaps this is a good route for those who wish to become saints. Going from Francis to Dante might be an equally good route for those of us who wish to become better scholars. 29 Bernardino da Siena, Prediche Volgari sul Campo di Siena 1427, a cura di Carlo Delcomo (Milano, 1989), Vol. I, 676. The text of Dante, taken from the sermon itself, does not differ from the Singleton edition. I continue to use the Singleton translation. 30 See the “Cronologia della Vita di San Bernardino” in Prediche Volgare, p. 55. 31 Iris Origo, The World of San Bernardino (New York, 1962), p. 195.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE POSTHUMOUS MIRACLES OF ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI IN THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN PAINTING Gregory W. Ahlquist and William R. Cook

Only nine years after Francis of Assisi died and only seven years after his canonization, Bonaventura Berlinghieri created the earliest panel painting that we know of 1 containing stories from the life and miracles of St Francis. All the stories represented in the panel are contained in Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima, published in 1228 or 1229.2 The two stories from Francis’ life that appear in that panel,

1 There is a seventeenth-century drawing of a panel that was in San Miniato al Tedesco at that time; it includes an inscribed date of 1228 on it. However, there are good reasons, discussed below, for dating that panel in the 1250s. The drawing was published in Niccolò Catalano, Fiume del terrestre paradiso (Florence: Amadori Massi, 1652): 330. It is reproduced in Edward Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting: An Illustrated Index (Florence: Olschki, 1949): #410. See especially William R. Cook, Images of St Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to ca.1320 in Italy: A Catalogue (Florence: Olschki, 1999): #236. 2 Thomas of Celano wrote three different major accounts of Francis’ life and miracles. Since each of them has two names, it is important to give the citations: I Celano (I Cel) = Vita Prima (1228–1229) II Celano (II Cel) = Vita Secunda (1244–1247) III Celano (III Cel) = Tractatus de miraculis (1250–1252) The Latin texts are found in Analecta franciscana X (Florence: Quaracchi, 1941): I Cel: 3–115; II Cel: 129–260; III Cel: 271–330. There are several translations of I Cel. The best is in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, v.1: The Saint, ed. Regis Armstrong, et al. (New York: New City Press, 1999): 180–308. Similarly, the best translation of II Cel is in St. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, v.2: The Founder (New York: New City Press, 2000): 239–393; this translation uses the title The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul. The only English translation of III Cel is in the same volume, pp. 399–468. We will also make reference to Celano’s Legenda ad Usum Chori, based on his Vita Prima. The Latin text is in Analecta franciscana X: 119–126. The English translation is in The Saint: 319–326. In 1260, Bonaventure was commissioned to write a new life of Francis, which he finished by 1263. In 1266, the General Chapter ordered all earlier lives destroyed, thus leaving the Legenda Maior as the only official life of the saint for the Order. The Latin text of the Legenda Maior is found in Analecta Franciscana X: 557–652. The best English translation is in The Founder: 525–683. In this study, we will cite the works of Celano by their section numbers and the Legenda Maior by part (I = life, II = posthumous miracles), chapter, and section.

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the sermon to the birds and the stigmatization, have been represented countless times since 1235. However, there are six narratives in the Berlinghieri panel, the other four being not events from the saint’s life but rather miraculous cures that took place through his intercession following his death. These same four posthumous miracles were repeated with some variation in five other surviving panel paintings made before 1260. Thus, they and not the sermon to the birds and the stigmatization—which appear in these early panels twice and three times respectively—are found most often in the early narrative paintings of the life of the saint.3 In addition to the frequent replication of the four posthumous miracles first found in Berlinghieri’s panel in Pescia, other posthumous miracles appear in panels in Florence, Pisa,4 and Orte. In all of the surviving narrative scenes of panel paintings of Francis completed before 1263, the year that Bonaventure published his Legenda Maior, the definitive life of Francis, more than half of the stories are of posthumous miracles. Furthermore, three of the panels under consideration contain only posthumous miracles. Since we will often be referring to the panel paintings containing the posthumous miracles, it is useful at the outset to present a list of them:5 Location

Artist

Date

Pescia, San Francesco. Florence, Santa Croce. Pistoia, Museo Civico Pisa, Pinacoteca Assisi, Tesoro Vatican, Pinacoteca Orte, Museo Diocesano

Bonaventura Berlinghieri unknown unknown close to Giunta Pisano close to Giunta Pisano unknown unknown

1235 ca. 1245 ca. 1250 early 1250s ca. 1253 ca. 1255 ca. 1260

3 The panel that was once in San Miniato al Tedesco contained both the sermon to the birds and the stigmatization as well as three of the four posthumous miracles that are found in the other early panels. See Catalano: 330; Cook, Images: #236 and n. 1 above. 4 The San Miniato al Tedesco panel also included one of the two “new” miracles found in the Pisa dossal; see Catalano: 330 and Cook, Images: #236. 5 There is some controversy over the authorship and dating of all of the panels except the one in Pescia, since no one has challenged the authenticity of its inscription with the painter’s name and the date when it was made. The list that follows is thus our judgments about authorship and date.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 213 In addition, we will make reference to a now-lost panel probably dating from ca. 1255 that was in San Miniato al Tedesco, known to us from a seventeenth-century drawing.6 Although there is a wide range of dates proposed for the Bardi dossal, there is some consensus emerging for a date ca. 1245. See Chiara Frugoni, Francesco: Un’altra storia (Genoa: Marietti, 1988): 9, 41; Miklòs Boskovits, The Origins of Florentine Painting 1100–1270 (v.I, sec. I of A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting) (Florence: Giunta, 1994): 472–507; Cook, Images: #68. Traditionally, the unknown artist has been called the Bardi St Francis Master; recently Boskovits (Origins: 112–116 & 472–507) has argued that the panel is the work of the young Coppo di Marcovaldo. See also Cook, “New Sources, New Insights: The Bardi Dossal of the Life and Miracles of St Francis of Assisi,” Studi francescani 93 (1996): 325–346. The Pistoia dossal is often attributed to the artist who painted a cross in the Uffizi (#434, hence his name, the Master of Cross 434). See Museo Civico di Pistoia. Catalogo delle collezioni ed. Cecilia Mazzi (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1982): 93, and Angelo Tartuferi, La pittura a Firenze nel duecento (Florence: Alberto Bruschi, 1990): 27, 75–76. Both of these studies suggest a date ca. 1250. See also Cook, Images: #145. The Assisi dossal is usually assigned to the 1250s, and several scholars have suggested that 1253, the year of the dedication of the Basilica by Pope Innocent IV, is a likely terminus ante quem. See, for example, Silvestro Nessi, La Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi e la sua documentazione storica (Assisi: Casa Editrice Francescana, 1982): 160–161. There is more debate about authorship. Some scholars see the dossal as a work of Giunta Pisano while others regard it as a local work. For the argument for Giunta’s authorship, see Tartuferi, Giunta Pisano (Soncino: Edizioni dei Soncino, 1991): 62. See also Cook, Images: #27. In general, the dossal now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana is often regarded as derived from the Assisi panel shortly after the creation of the prototype. Thus it is dated in the 1250s by Tartuferi, Giunta Pisano: 17. Most scholars believe that the Vatican painting is the work of a different artist than the author of the Assisi dossal, although some assign both to Giunta. See Cook, Images: #163. The questions of the Pisa dossal’s authorship and date have generated two widely different views. There are those who believe that the panel is the work of Giunta Pisano and that it was made about the same time as or even before Berlinghieri’s panel in Pescia. See Boskovits, “Giunta Pisano: Una svolta nella pittura italiana del duecento,” Arte illustrata 6 (1973): 344–346, and Tartuferi, Giunta Pisano: 14, 46. Others are convinced that since two of the stories are first found in III Cel that the panel must have been produced after its approval by the General Chapter in 1254 or at least after its completion two years earlier and that the painter is not Giunta but an anonymous Pisan artist. For a later date, see Antonino Caleca, “Pittura del duecento e del trecento a Pisa e a Lucca” in La pittura in Italia: Il duecento e il trecento ed. Carlo Pirovano (Milan: Electa, 1986): 235, and Enzo Carli, Pittura medievale pisana v.1 (Milan: A. Martello, 1958): 39. See Cook, Images: #143. The Orte dossal is the least studied of the early narrative panels of the life and miracles of Francis. Based on a sixteenth-century inscription on the back of the panel, most scholars have been satisfied with the date 1282 for this work. However, one of the four stories is based in II Cel 78–79, which was suppressed in 1266, although Jacobus de Voragine included the story in his life of Francis in The Golden Legend. Since that story and the posthumous miracle that follows it relate to the Cathar heresy and since there were problems involving the friars and Cathars in Orte ca.1260 and since the friars of Orte in 1260 moved to a larger church, we are confident that the painting should be dated ca. 1260. For a more thorough

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Although these early panels contain more miracle stories than events in Francis’ life, the intense interest in Francis as thaumaturge almost disappears after 1263 with the publication of Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior. In part, this may happen because Bonaventure included none of the depicted posthumous miracles in his authoritative version of Francis’ life. And although he included a lot of traditional posthumous cures as well as other miracles Francis performed after his death, they are not an integral part of Bonaventure’s theology of Francis but instead are more like an appendix.7 Two of the three post-1263 narrative sequences of the life of Francis in the Basilica in Assisi contain no posthumous miracles,8 nor are there any in the

treatment of this issue, see Cook, “The Orte Dossal: A Traditional and Innovative Life of St Francis of Assisi, Arte medievale 9 (1995): 41–47. The author of this painting often is described as Sienese because there is general agreement that the panel in Siena containing stories from the life of John the Baptist is by the same artist. Recently, other works have been associated with the painter of the Orte panel; and he is perhaps best described as an artist working in southern Tuscany, Umbria, and northern Lazio; see Filippo Todini, La pittura umbra dal duecento al primo cinquecento (Milan: Longanesi, 1989): v.1, 183. See also Cook, Images: #115. 6 Despite the 1228 inscription in the seventeenth-century drawing of the San Miniato al Tedesco panel, many scholars have concluded that either the drawing contains an error or that the date was commemorative of the canonization of Francis rather than the date the painting was made. The main reason to challenge the inscription is that one of the stories in the dossal has no written source earlier than III Cel and took place far away from San Miniato. We think that the story from III Cel was probably borrowed from the dossal in Pisa and that consequently the San Miniato panel was made shortly after the one in Pisa. For a date in the 1250s, see Benvenuto Bughetti, “Vita e miracoli di San Francesco nelle tavole istoriate dei secoli XIII e XIV,” Archivum franciscanum historicum 19 (1926): 715–716. The drawing is in Catalano: 330. Recently, Joseph Polzer has argued that since Francis has no nimbus in this panel, it must have been made before his canonization in July. 1228. There are indeed paintings done after 1228 in which Francis has no nimbus, and Polzer is also relying much too heavily on the accuracy in detail of Catalano’s drawing. See “The ‘Triumph of Thomas’ Panel in Santa Caterina, Pisa: Meaning and Date,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Instituts von Florenz 37 (1993): 56. See also Cook, Images: #236. 7 Bonaventure also wrote a condensed version of the Legenda Maior for liturgical use, consisting of sixty-three lessons. Only one of those lessons in the Legenda Minor discusses posthumous miracles (Legenda Minor VII, 7), and it does so generically. In the following section, Bonaventure claims to have been saved from death as a small child after his mother made a vow to Francis (VII, 8). The English text of the Legenda Minor is in The Founder: 684–717. 8 There are some who identify the second story in a window in the Upper Church in Assisi as the cure of the cripple Bartholomew of Narni. However, despite certain similarities of presentation with the Bartholomew story, that is not what is being depicted in the Upper Church window since it lacks any depiction either of water or of the cured man walking away. The Assisi scene is most likely a story

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 215 dossal of ca. 1280 now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. The cycle of twenty-eight stories from the Franciscan legend traditionally ascribed to Giotto in the Upper Church in Assisi does contain four posthumous miracles; however, they are quite different sorts of miracles than the cures found in the early paintings. Furthermore, they are rarely included in later cycles of Francis’ life, even those which were directly derived from the Upper Church fresco cycle.9 In this study we will first examine the four posthumous miracles that were so central in depictions of the Franciscan legend before the publication of the Legenda Maior. In doing so, we will examine the stories’ sources, suggest why these particular ones were selected for depiction, and study the variations in their representation. We will also look at the posthumous miracles that appear less often and try to trace their sources. We will discuss the “new” miracles in the fresco cycle of the Upper Church in Assisi and show that their function in that cycle is quite different than the miracles represented in the early dossals. Finally, we shall assess the reasons for the initial popularity of certain posthumous miracles and why they were later regarded as not important enough to occupy precious space in narrative sequences of the life of St Francis. Before examining the four miracles that were commonly represented in the early panel paintings, it is useful to recall the audience of these altarpieces. While the Latin vitae of Francis were written primarily for the friars, the paintings were versions of the saint’s life that had a broader audience since they were placed in Franciscan churches where laypeople would see them. It is probably not much of an exaggeration to say that the designers of these panels chose stories and ways of representing them with this largely lay audience in mind. Along with sermons, these paintings served to present Francis to the laity and to make the case for his sanctity and his value as in intercessor and a model of the Christian life.10 of Francis and a leper, although it probably depends on the iconography of the story of Bartholomew of Narni. See Cook, Images: #21. 9 The earliest cycle dependent on the Assisi frescoes, from San Francesco in Rieti, contains two of the four miracles from the Assisi fresco. And the story of Francis’ appearance to Pope Gregory IX to show him the reality of his side wound occurs occasionally, for example in a sculpture in San Francesco in Siena. In general, however, these posthumous miracles were rarely incorporated into Franciscan narrative painting in the fourteenth century. These works will all be discussed in more detail below. 10 See Cook, “Fraternal and Lay Images of St Francis in the Thirteenth Century”

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We do not know exactly where these altarpieces were located at the time when they were made, for none is in its original place or even in its original church today.11 Hans Belting has suggested that these dossals dedicated to Francis were not for high altars and that they may originally have been displayed only on the saint’s feast day or at least only on certain occasions.12 Even if he is correct, the panels were soon permanently displayed in Franciscan churches, but on side altars. We know that the dossal in Pisa was carried through the streets of the city in 1631,13 but we do not know if such practices began near the time of the creation of these works. We can with confidence assume that sermons would have been preached with these panels nearby and with references made to them, and we will present evidence to support this claim in discussing specific sections of several of the early Franciscan dossals. It is clear that the primary written source for Bonaventura Berlinghieri’s dossal in Pescia of 1235 is Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima, commonly referred to as I Celano, written in 1228–9. However, the six scenes in the Pescia dossal can hardly be thought of simply as illustrations of Celano’s text. For example, Berlinghieri’s stigmatization borrows from traditional iconography of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani, and in it Francis bears the hand and foot wounds while gazing at the seraph. However, Celano is quite clear that the wounds did not appear in Francis’ flesh until after the disappearance of the seraph. Furthermore, the companions whom, according to Celano, Francis left behind while he went to preach to the birds are standing next to him in the painting. In the posthumous miracles, Berlinghieri also collapses time into simultaneity, borrows from established iconography of other sacred events, and makes interpretative choices about his written source. In addition to the Vita Prima,

in Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages ed. James Ross Sweeney and Stanley Chodorow (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989): 263–289. 11 The Pescia and Bardi dossals are the only ones still located in churches. Both San Francesco in Pescia and Santa Croce in Florence were constructed only at the end of the thirteenth century; thus, their original placements were in earlier churches that were destroyed to make way for larger ones. The Bardi dossal was only placed in its current location in 1595, and its origin has no connection with the Bardi family. 12 Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art tr. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994): 379. 13 Pittura italiana del duecento e trecento: Catalogo della mostra giottesca di Firenze del 1937 ed. Giulia Sinibaldi & Giulia Brunetti (Florence: Sansoni, 1943): #18.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 217 Celano’s brief Legenda ad Usum Chori was known to Berlinghieri; and we will look at evidence to suggest that it too was at least a minor source for Berlinghieri in his task of presenting stories from Francis’ life in visual form. Although we do not know if Berlinghieri made use of oral sources, it is probable since we are convinced that at least three of the other early dossals contain elements that must have been passed on orally.14 The early dossals had specific didactic functions. Some of them, although not all, contained images of important events in Francis’ life which not only proclaimed his sanctity (e.g. the stigmatization) but also defined the principal work of his followers (the sermon to the birds, a preaching story). In the panels in Florence and Pistoia, the authentication of the Rule by Innocent III made clear the legitimacy of the friars. With regard to the posthumous miracles, they presented Francis as an object of veneration and intercession and thus propagated the cult of the new saint. Furthermore, these images of Francis were used to advertise Assisi as a pilgrimage center since three of the four miracles took place at the tomb of Francis, even though only thirteen of the forty posthumous miracles that Celano reports took place there.15 The posthumous miracles do in fact convey a sense of Francis’ power, and they set Assisi apart from other places. These paintings send a message to the viewers that they should come to Assisi to receive healing for specific and common ailments. The posthumous miracles also communicate the message that Francis is active in the world after his death through the miracles that are performed at his tomb and other places. The four commonly represented posthumous miracles of Francis, first found in the Pescia dossal and with some variety repeated five times, are the cure of the girl with the twisted neck (I Cel 127), the healing of cripples and a leper (I Cel 128–133), exorcisms (I Cel 137–138), and the cure of Bartholomew of Narni (I Cel 135). These

14 We will show, in our discussion of the Bardi, Pistoia, and Orte dossals, the likelihood that oral tradition was a direct source for sections those panels. Useful background for the Pescia panel and early painting generally is found in Elizabeth Ayer, “Thirteenth-Century Imagery in Transition: The Berlinghieri Family of Lucca,” diss. Rutgers University, 1991. 15 For a discussion of the miracles and the categories in which they fall, see Paola Ungarelli, “Tommaso da Celano e Bonaventura Berlinghieri,” Studi francescani 81 (1984): 209 ff.

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four particular miracles were selected from the many that Celano describes, in part because each is resonant of the kinds of miracles saints traditionally performed. Thus, Francis is firmly placed into the tradition of saints who were already popular and whose stories were familiar to the audience viewing the dossals. In addition, these particular miracles were also like ones that Christ performed; and the deliberate choice of these miracles is an attempt to draw parallels between the lives of Christ and Francis, a parallel which would be developed much more systematically by Bonaventure in the Legenda Maior and also by later artists. Another issue in the selection of the miracles in all probability was their visual quality. It is much clearer to viewers of a painting that they are witnessing the cure of a cripple than, for example, the restoration of someone’s hearing. Clarity was obviously an issue for those responsible for the creation of the dossals, and we will examine ways in which later painters clarified and simplified some of Berlinghieri’s iconography so that it could be more easily understood by the paintings’ audiences. Although based upon the same written source, each dossal is unique and contains elements of individuality. For example, the bath where Bartholomew of Narni is cured is represented quite differently in each panel. The most likely reason for this and for some of the other changes is that the artist has tried to depict a bath that people in a particular place would recognize. Thus what was happening in the scene—a cure at a bath—would be clear. Subtle changes can be seen in each representation of each miracle, and we will describe them and seek to explain the reasons for differences in conception or detail. In general, the posthumous miracles change over time toward a simpler representation of each event. Thus, the eight cripples in the Pescia dossal are reduced to one in some of the later works. Such simplification resulted in a much greater legibility of the posthumous miracles. We shall begin with a discussion of the first miracle that Francis performed after his death, the cure of the girl with the twisted neck. And we shall first examine its representation in the earliest of the dossals, the panel of 1235 in San Francesco in Pescia, signed by Bonaventura Berlinghieri of Lucca. In all of the following discussion, we shall use the term artist to refer to the person(s) responsible for the creation of the panel. Since we know virtually nothing about the patronage of these early panels, it is impossible to distinguish between those who sponsored or directed the artist and the person who actu-

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 219 ally painted the panel. Thus, the term artist in this paper refers collectively to those who contributed to the creation of the images. Although it is clear that I Celano is the primary written source for Berlinghieri, there is also good reason to believe that he also made use of Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori. In the Vita Prima, Celano explains that on the day of Francis’ burial, a girl with a twisted neck was brought to the tomb and placed her head directly on it. She was cured immediately; alarmed by the changes, she began to weep and ran away. In the Legenda ad usum chori Celano writes: “On the very day he was buried, Francis scattered signs dazzling as lightning. He restored to her regular height a young girl whose body had been bent and severely twisted.”16 Berlinghieri has added several elements that are not in either written account. Celano does not tell us who brought the girl to the tomb; but in the painting she is accompanied by a woman, presumably her mother. In the depiction of this story in Pescia, the girl does not run away after she is cured, as Celano narrates the event, but instead is carried triumphantly away on the mother’s shoulders. Thus, both the girl and her mother appear twice in the scene. The practice of depicting the same person twice in the same scene was common in medieval art; for example, Jesus is represented twice in the story of his agony in the garden of Gethsemani in Duccio’s Maestà in Siena. In Berlinghieri’s dossal at Pescia, three of the four posthumous miracles contain the same people both before and after their cures. The particular detail of the mother carrying away her child on her shoulders may have a specific iconographic source. In a fresco probably from the end of the eleventh century in the lower church of San Clemente in Rome, there is the story in which a woman had left her child at the shrine of St Clement, which was under water every day except his feast day. When she returned a year later, she discovered that her child was still alive and carried him away on her shoulders.17 The arrangement of the scene—altar on the right

16

The Saint: 324. For the fullest description of the iconography in San Clemente and its sources, see Hélène Toubert, “Rome et le Mont-Cassin: Nouvelles Remarques sur les Fresques de l’Eglise inférieure de Saint-Clment,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 30 (1976): 14–16. For further discussion of the story, see Otto Demus, Byzantine Art and the West (New York: New York University Press, 1970): 108. There is no doubt that there was a 17

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with a child in front of it and the mother next to it plus the woman carrying the child away to the left—is identical in the San Clemente fresco and the Pescia dossal. Although the San Clemente fresco would not have been visible in Berlinghieri’s time, it is a reminder to us that such an iconography existed, and Berlinghieri could have known it from another fresco or panel or from a manuscript illumination.18 One of the striking details in the Berlinghieri version of the cure of the girl with the twisted neck is the division that is established in the middle of the scene. The pillar at the far left of the tomb marks a division between the mother and five lay witnesses on one side and the two friars plus the girl at the tomb on the other. This separation is emphasized further by the replacement of the architecture on the left side with a plain gold background behind the tomb. Thus, the edge of the tomb is the meeting place of the sacred and the profane worlds. Only hands cross this dividing line between the secular and the sacred—the mother’s in a gesture of prayer and a friar’s and a layman’s in gestures of wonder. This miracle, more clearly than any other, presents the process of receiving healing from Francis: the layman reaches out in prayer at the tomb of Francis and Francis brings down power from heaven to heal the one in need. This demarcation of sacred and secular space may also symbolize the apparent boundaries that were erected with Francis’ death, i.e. both the barrier between Francis’ tomb and the world and the barrier between him and living people may appear to be insurmountable; but the healing and mercy that Francis distributed while he was alive are still accessible through the prayers of people, specifically for those who pray at his tomb. Two specific details in this section of the Pescia dossal are directly taken from the writings of Celano. In the Vita Prima, he emphasizes that the miracle happened immediately after Francis had died; and the artist conveys this through the temporary nature of the tomb. It is a wooden box without a cloth covering it but set with a pitcher, chalice, and book. The artist has shown this tomb placed on top of

great deal of Greek influence on painters from Lucca and Pisa following the fall of Constantinople in 1204. 18 It has been argued that Berlinghieri knew at least indirectly frescoes in Serbia and that he might have seen directly shards of ancient Greek pots; see Ernst Gombrich, “Bonaventura Berlinghieri’s Palmettes,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976): 234–236. Thus, he was not a provincial artist. See Ayer, passim.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 221 a low, cloth-covered block, probably representing an altar. Second, there are stylized flames that extend from the tops of the outer pillars of Francis’ tomb. These flames are the visualization of the “signs dazzling as lightning” referred to in the Legenda ad Usum Chori. Celano does not mention witnesses to the cure of the girl with the twisted neck. However, we have seven—two friars and five laymen. The presence of two friars parallels the two friars in the event depicted immediately above—the sermon to the birds. I Celano tells that story as a miracle which occurred during Francis’ life.19 Thus, although according to Celano, Francis left behind his companions to run toward the birds, they stand next to him in Berlinghieri’s depiction of this event; and one of them makes a gesture of wonder. Thus, we have both an indication that we are looking at a miraculous event and two witnesses to verify that event. Similarly, the two friars at the tomb are witnesses; and one of them also makes a gesture indicating that a miracle has occurred. The inclusion of a group of laymen who see the results of prayers to St Francis strengthens the sense that this is a story that can be believed. Although the painter of the Bardi dossal, sometimes called the Bardi St Francis Master, had I Celano and either the Berlinghieri panel or one based on it as direct sources, there are numerous differences in the representation of the miracle of the girl with the twisted neck in his dossal for Santa Croce in Florence. The most obvious change is that the section containing this miracle also contains three exorcisms, depicted in a separate scene in the Pescia panel. This combining of two separate stories plus the merging of Francis’ death and funeral with the cure of cripples were almost certainly done in order to create space for the inclusion of two local miracles not previously depicted; they will be discussed below. In the Bardi version of the cure of the girl with the twisted neck, the five lay witnesses and the kneeling mother in the Pescia dossal are replaced by the exorcism. The temporary tomb is also changed significantly. A wooden box with nothing on top of it and standing on a raised platform replaces the more awkward arrangement of the Pescia

19 Actually, Celano does not specifically say that the sermon to the birds at Bevagna is a miracle (I Cel 58). However, the following section contains another story of birds listening to Francis and obeying him; and Celano calls this a miracle and states that the people who witnessed this event regarded it as such (I Cel 59).

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dossal. Since there is no canopy over the tomb, there are no columns around it and consequently no division in the scene between sacred and secular space and no lightning. The artist may have eliminated the canopy as a way of showing the temporary nature of the tomb since it does not appear to take the place of or function as an altar. The other scene in the dossal that takes place at Francis’ tomb is the canonization two years after his death, and there is a canopy over it in that scene. It may also be that the division in the Pescia dossal simply did not suit the Bardi version of the story since the lay witnesses are replaced with exorcisms, which also took place at the saint’s tomb but at a later time. The Pistoia dossal marks a development toward greater simplicity. The scene is reduced to the essential figures in a more abstract setting: the mother, the child at the tomb, three friars, and the child carried off on the mother’s shoulders. The canopy over the tomb is replaced by an abstract piece of architecture without columns, and thus the sharp division of the scene into two parts is absent. The wooden tomb is almost identical to the one that appears in the Bardi dossal (except for the addition of two books on it), a sign that the Bardi St Francis Master’s way of presenting it provided greater legibility than Berlinghieri’s. The simpler scene focuses all of the viewer’s attention on the intercession of the mother and the miraculous cure at the tomb. The Pisa dossal uses Berlinghieri’s basic way of depicting the box in which Francis’ body was placed but with clarifications. The tomb looks terribly clumsy and makeshift, for the wooden box sits awkwardly on an altar from which the altar cloth has not been removed, and a red cloth and liturgical furnishings are on top of the box. This may be the artist’s way of making as clear as possible that the cure of the girl with the twisted neck occurred as soon as Francis was buried; but we wonder if the artist employed someone’s memory of what the tomb looked like on that day. Also, like the Pescia version, the Pisa image includes laymen as witnesses, at least seven in number. However, the separation of the space into two discrete sections that we find in the Pescia dossal is again missing despite the canopy and the complexity of the architecture in the background in the version of this story in Pisa. The author of the Assisi dossal has made significant changes in the iconography of the cure of the girl with the twisted neck, although the basic arrangement of the scene and the appearance of the girl

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 223 and her mother twice are still in place. The city of Assisi itself is a principal element, making up the background of the left side of the scene; and the gate leading onto the Via Sant’Apollinare is identifiable.20 Clearly, Assisi as a place to receive healing as well as a place of popular devotion is the context for the miracle. Numerous laymen stand in front of the gate as witnesses to the miracle at the tomb of Francis. Over half of the scene is taken up by the laity and the buildings of Assisi; and the city is as important as the tomb, an appropriate emphasis for a dossal that was commissioned for San Francesco in Assisi, the church that had contained the saint’s body since 1230. The tomb itself is set in an ambiguous space. There is a canopy behind it, suggesting that it is inside a church; however, the tomb is set on the ground, and a mountain is visible behind it, indicating that it is outdoors. Behind and to the right of the tomb are about ten friars. Perhaps a reason for the emphasis on the city rather than the specific site of the miracle is that by the time this panel was painted, Francis’ body was no longer in the place where this miracle occurred, the church of San Giorgio, but rather in his permanent tomb in the Basilica of San Francesco. As we will see later, the painter of the Assisi dossal took great care to depict in detail the altar over Francis’ permanent tomb in two of the other posthumous miracles. Despite a lot of stylistic similarities between the Assisi and Vatican panels, iconographically there are significant differences. The details of the city of Assisi have been removed from the scene and replaced with the exterior of a basilica. The canopy stands in the middle of the scene and does not cover the tomb, and the background architecture on the right is apparently a chapel. The tomb is presented as a wooden box with two candlesticks on it sitting atop an altar. The number of friars has been reduced to two, but there is a large group of lay witnesses. Since this panel was probably commissioned for a papal chapel in Rome by either Innocent IV or his successor Alexander IV, there was no need to include the local architecture of Assisi.21 The nature 20 See Pietro Scarpellini, “Le pitture” in Il Tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi (Assisi: Casa Editrice Francescana, 1980): 34–38. This extraordinary depiction of Assisi is also discussed in Tartuferi, Giunta Pisano: 62. 21 Cook, “Early Images of St Francis of Assisi in Rome” in Exegesti Monumentum Aere Perennius: Essays in Honor of John Francis Charles ed. Bruce Baker and John Fischer (Indianapolis: Wabash College, 1994): 21. See also Cook, Images: #163.

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of the commission may also suggest why the entire space is sacred, with specifically ecclesiastical elements forming the entire background to the miraculous event. In addition to the influence of the Assisi panel, there are elements borrowed from the version of the miracle in Pisa, in particular the number and arrangement of the witnesses to the miracle. We can tentatively conclude that each artist was free to add and subtract certain details of the story of the girl with the twisted neck as long as the essential elements—the tomb, friars, the girl at the tomb, and the girl carried away by her mother—were included. Some of the changes may have been due to differences in style of the various artists. However, we sense that a painter such as the creator of the Vatican dossal selected details that had been included in various earlier representations of the same story in order to create precisely the desired meaning of the story. One can easily get the impression from a quick look or a general description that the story of the girl with the twisted neck was simply duplicated by various artists, relying on the image that Bonaventura Berlinghieri created. However, a careful examination makes clear that they do not “all look alike.” In addition to the discussion above about picking and choosing elements and the taste of individual artists, we can speculate about at least three other reasons for changes. One is legibility. The stylized lightning that probably is a visualization of Celano’s statement in the Legenda ad Usum Chori is never repeated. Would anyone not familiar with that text have understood that detail? The answer is probably not, and perhaps they were even misunderstood since fire has so many possible meanings in medieval iconography. We will discover more obvious clarifications in the cure of the cripples and a leper discussed below. A second reason for change is the addition of local material; this element is clearest in the Assisi dossal. Also, the city’s absence in the Vatican panel, in so many ways clearly derivative of Assisi, supports the idea that the city of Assisi only has meaning for the story in the painting that was in Assisi since the presence of the tomb of Francis in the story by itself makes clear to people that the event took place there. A third reason for change is probably the inclusion of oral sources. The particularly awkward rendering of Francis’ temporary tomb in the Pisa version may derive from a personal recollection. The second posthumous miracle in Berlinghieri’s dossal at Pescia is the healing of cripples and a leper at the saint’s tomb. It is a complex scene and includes several events described separately in I

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 225 Celano. There are four kneeling crippled men, identifiable by the hand crutches next to them. Since I Celano mentions four male cripples who were cured at the tomb of St Francis (Nicholas of Foligno, I Cel 129; a boy with bent legs, I Cel 130; the boy from Montenero, I Cel 133; the boy from Gubbio, I Cel 134), it is reasonable to assume that they are the four in Berlinghieri’s depiction of the cure of cripples. The artist has also indicated that there are probably four other men kneeling behind the front four. They could be cripples who were cured elsewhere, several of whom Celano mentions. They also could represent people who were blind (I Cel 136) and mute (I Cel 149) who were cured at Francis’ tomb. Of course, this group could simply indicate that innumerable people were cured in the presence of the saint’s body. One of the kneeling figures is the boy from Montenero; for according to Celano, while the boy was at the tomb, a young friar appeared to him and offered him a pear. The friar led the healed boy away and then disappeared. Berlinghieri has shown us the moment when the young friar handed a pear to the boy from Montenero. The friar is standing behind the tomb, and Berlinghieri has interpreted Celano’s narrative to mean that the young friar was Francis, for he has a nimbus and hands containing the stigmata. Francis is represented without a beard, unlike all the other images of him in this dossal, presumably because Celano described this friar with the pears as young. The identification of the young friar with Francis is not at all required of Celano’s story; perhaps the friar’s sudden disappearance after he led the boy away from the tomb was the detail that led to this understanding of I Celano 133. At the far right, two of the cripples walk away cured. From their clothes, it is clear that they are the two who are kneeling closest to the tomb, one of whom is of course the boy from Montenero. Between the kneeling cripples and the two who walk away cured stands a leper, identifiable by the noisemaker that he is carrying because lepers were required to announce their presence with devices such as this so that people could flee from them. This leper also wears a hat and carries a flask on a stick over his shoulder. Since there are no blemishes on the leper’s body, we know that he is already cured. There are two cures of young men who were lepers in I Celano,22

22

In the Legenda ad Usum Chori, Celano mentions the cures of two lepers but gives no details.

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but neither took place at Francis’ tomb. We cannot be sure if the leper in the Berlinghieri panel is supposed to represent a specific man who was cured, but that is not likely since there is no detail to suggest one of the lepers whose stories Celano narrates rather than the other. Of all the suppliants in this scene, only the boy of Montenero is identifiable. Clearly, Berlinghieri was more interested in indicating the quality and quantity of Francis’ power at his tomb than in telling individual stories. Had he wanted to do that, he could have, for example, placed a large candle in the hands of the leper; for Celano explains that the leper from San Severino brought a large candle each year to St Francis (I Cel 146). Behind the tomb, there are two friars, one on each side of Francis. This replicates the two friars in the two previous scenes, the cure of the girl with the twisted neck and the sermon to the birds. Since there is no mention of the presence of friars in any of the miracles that took place at Francis’ tomb in I Celano, once again their purpose must be as witnesses to the miraculous. The tomb itself is interesting because it is clearly different from the way it was represented in the story of the cure of the girl with the twisted neck. There, the tomb was temporary. In the cure of the cripples and leper and with some minor differences also in the exorcism scene below, there is an altar cloth hanging in front of the tomb, and the top is probably meant to be the lid of the tomb. It has liturgical furnishings on it. There is a canopy and drapery in the background, but there are no columns on which the canopy rests. However, all of the miracles at the tomb that Celano relates took place at Francis’ temporary tomb because the translation of the saint’s body did not occur until 1230, after the publication of Celano’s Vita Prima. Since Berlinghieri was painting several years after the translation of Francis’ body, he represented the saint’s permanent resting place as the site of cures, for that is where the people who went to the tomb at the time the painting was made would go for similar healings. Thus, the story of the cures of cripples and a leper is not primarily to document a historical event but to serve as a call to pilgrimage. This scene is the least successful of the four posthumous miracles that Berlinghieri included in the Pescia dossal. It is quite crowded— fourteen figures are present. The crowdedness takes away from the drama of the two cured men walking away on the far right, and one has to look quite carefully even to identify those men with the

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 227 two kneeling closest to the altar. The presence of Francis is also confusing. He is standing behind his own tomb, but he looks different than the large central image of the saint in the dossal because he is beardless. Exactly what Francis is doing would not be clear to anyone seeing the panel who did not know the story of the boy from Montenero. Even looking very closely at the image, it is virtually impossible to determine that Francis is giving the boy from Montenero a pear. And even if the fruit were easily identifiable, this is hardly an edifying detail unless one knows the details of Celano’s account of the boy’s cure. Of course, there would no doubt be preachers who could explain a story to their audience, but the details in this section of the Pescia dossal would be indecipherable without a lot of explication. In subsequent versions of the cure of cripples and lepers, artists will make quite a few adjustments to Berlinghieri’s image. In the Bardi dossal, the artist did not devote an entire section of the panel to the cure of cripples and a leper. Instead, he has added four cripples—two men and two women—with hand crutches to the scene of Francis’ death/funeral and eliminated the leper altogether.23 Thus, the artist has sacrificed Celano’s ordering of events—according to Celano the cure of the girl with the twisted neck took place before any of the cripples were healed—presumably to conserve space so that there was room for two local miracles. The artist has also not shown the “before and after” that Berlinghieri presented in the Pescia scene since none of the cripples is shown walking away. Probably this omission was for two reasons. First, this scene is quite crowded since there are a lot of people surrounding Francis’ bier. Second, the Bardi St Francis Master has combined three separate events—Francis’ death as indicated by his soul being taken to heaven, the funeral, and the cure of the cripples. The artist hardly needed to add more figures or a fourth instant in time! In two of the other posthumous miracle scenes in the Bardi dossal, there are people both

23 The Siena dossal of ca.1280 has no posthumous miracles. However, it appears that there are people in front of Francis’ bier in the scene of Francis’ death and funeral. Perhaps, therefore, the artist has made some attempt to suggest that Francis worked miracles after his death. For a further discussion of this section of the Siena dossal, see Cook, “The St. Francis Dossal in Siena: An Important Interpretation of the Life of Francis of Assisi,” Archivum franciscanum historicum 87 (1994): 14. See also Cook, Images: #180.

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before and after their cures, perhaps mitigating the need for a third such example. The Pistoia dossal follows Berlinghieri’s scheme of the four posthumous miracles, but the artist makes a drastic move toward simplicity with regard to the cure of cripples and a leper. Three friars appear around the tomb of Francis, but there is no representation of Francis as there is in the Pescia dossal. A leper and a crippled man both seek healing at the tomb, and the cripple leaves the tomb healed. The fourteen people in the Pescia version have been reduced to six. The Pistoia painter thus eliminated the figure of Francis and replaced him with another friar. He therefore eliminated the pear, which means that we can no longer identify the cripple as the boy from Montenero. And he added the cured man carrying away his hand crutches so that there is no doubt that he is the same person who came to the tomb crippled. This scheme is much more successful than Berlinghieri’s because there is much greater drama. We see the crippled man walk, and we rejoice in the elimination of the hideous sores of the leper. Once again, the leper is shown already cured; again he wears a hat and carries a flask, traditional pilgrim iconography. Only his noisemaker indicates his specific need for coming to the tomb of Francis. The tomb of Francis is even more permanent in the Pistoia version than in Berlinghieri’s. It is completely covered by the altar cloth. In fact, it is not explicit that what we see is the tomb of Francis rather than the altar of a Franciscan church. Clearly, the context of the scene was regarded as sufficient to make this section of the Pistoia panel legible. In the Pisa version, there is still greater simplicity and clarity. There are only two friars, the number that traditionally attests to a miracle. Furthermore, the leper has blemishes on his body. Perhaps, this detail was necessary to clarify who this standing figure is since here too he has some of the iconographic devices that we associate with a pilgrim. And the blemishes add to the drama of the event since we witness one miracle, the cure of the cripple, and can anticipate the second one. The tomb itself more closely resembles Berlinghieri’s representation of it—altar cloth in front, wooden top, liturgical furnishings, canopy in the background. The basic arrangement of the Pisa panel of the cure of cripples and lepers is also found in the Assisi dossal. However, in this panel, the precise location of these miracles is clarified. We must recall that

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 229 Berlinghieri made the distinction between the temporary tomb in the story of the cure of the girl with the twisted neck and the permanent tomb where other miracles took place. However, that permanent tomb is somewhat generic—i.e. it does not look makeshift, but it does not represent what the tomb in the Lower Church in Assisi looked like. In the Assisi dossal, which was possibly on and certainly near the altar above Francis’ tomb, what is represented, anachronistically to be sure, is Francis’ tomb in the Lower Church of the Basilica of San Francesco. The altar in the painting follows the design of the altar in the Basilica although the former has one more column. Furthermore, the apse of the Lower Church is represented abstractly behind the altar.24 As we will see, this altar will be represented again but from a different angle in the Assisi panel’s depiction of an exorcism. The general composition of the Assisi panel’s cure of cripples and lepers is also present in the Vatican dossal. However, the altar is no longer recognizable as that of the Lower Church, although the architecture to the far right may be an echo of the way the Assisi artist represented its apse. In addition to the tomb resembling the way it is represented in the Pisa panel, one of the friars and two large candlesticks stand in front of it. The placement of the friar is perhaps borrowed from the Pisa dossal’s depiction of the exorcism. The third posthumous miracle found in Berlinghieri’s dossal and repeated in the others is the exorcism of demons from possessed people at the tomb of St Francis. In Celano’s Vita Prima 137 and 138, there are two stories of exorcisms occurring through prayers to St Francis. One concerns Peter of Foligno, who came to Francis’ tomb and was cured when he touched it; the other is about a woman in Narni to whom Francis appeared. However, there also is a statement in I Celano 138 that many other possessed people were freed from the devils. The Legenda ad usum chori only contains one sentence that mentions several people who were freed from demons. Berlinghieri has included three people being freed of demons in the Pescia panel; in each case, a demon flies out of the mouth of the person being exorcised.25 The three possessed people are presented

24

Scarpellini: 34–38. One of the demons has been scratched out, although it is clear that it was once there because of the shape of the damaged area. 25

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in profile, a traditional Byzantine iconographic device that indicates an evil form.26 The person nearest the tomb is a man, probably Peter of Foligno. The dominant figure in this painting however is a woman, naked from the waist up. She is being restrained by a man, probably a physician; what medicine cannot do, prayers to St Francis can! Between Peter of Foligno and the woman is another man who, like the woman, has his hands bound. Certainly this is the most dramatic of Berlinghieri’s four posthumous miracles. The large ugly demons flying from the mouths of the three people highlight the enormity of the evil, and the demons’ effects on people are clear, especially because of the half-naked woman and the man whose hands are restrained. The presence of a physician is a reminder that this is one kind of malady for which there is no medical answer. Whether the possessed woman is meant to be the one whom Francis cured in Narni is not clear. However, the fact that there are only two stories in I Celano but three people in Berlinghieri’s panel suggests some attempt to make the scene generic, as both the Legenda ad Usum Chori and I Celano do. As previously stated, the Bardi dossal combined the miracle of the girl with the twisted neck and the expulsion of the demons. This makes for a crowded scene because there are two friars behind the tomb, the crippled girl at the tomb, the cured girl on her mother’s shoulders, three possessed people, two men who accompany them, and three demons. The man who is probably Peter of Foligno is shown nearest to the tomb. The woman, this time fully dressed in white, is again the most prominent figure; and she is being restrained by the physician. Her hands are behind her back, presumably bound. The third possessed person appears behind the woman and doctor while a second lay witness makes a gesture of wonder at the left of this group. The Bardi St Francis Master has included all of the figures in the Pescia version but devoted only a portion of a section of the dossal to it. And the possessed take up a position between the two parts of the story of the cure of the girl with the twisted neck. This section is one of the Bardi dossal’s least successful narratives. As in the case of the cure of cripples and a leper, the author of the Pistoia dossal removes multiple cures and focuses our attention

26 William Miller, “The Franciscan Legend in Italian Painting in the Thirteenth Century,” (diss. Columbia University, 1961): 39.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 231 on one main action. Here, only the woman, fully dressed and hands behind her back as in the Bardi dossal, is being freed of demonic possession. To dramatize her plight, two demons flee from her mouth. The medical doctor who restrains her must use both hands because of the violence of her movements. The artist retains the other lay witness in this painting. A greater oddity in this section of the Pistoia dossal is that there are six friars present rather than the three in the other two miracle stories that take place at Francis’ tomb. Thus we have a total of eight witnesses for this miracle. We do not know why so many witnesses were required for this story. Were there some doubts among the faithful in Pistoia about this sort of miracle? The Pisa dossal also shows only the woman being exorcised. She and the two men who accompany her are clearly based on the Pescia tradition and perhaps influenced by its simplification at Pistoia.27 However, the woman is more subdued in this scene; although she is half-naked, the doctor restrains her with only one hand while standing at arm’s length from her. The second lay witness looks on in terror, and there are only the traditional two friars at the tomb. There is only a single, small demon coming from the woman’s mouth. Here the painter of the Pisa dossal opts for greater simplicity, similar to the Pistoia version. However, the dramatic elements are changed from any of the earlier versions. The woman is less animated, but the second lay witness reacts with great fear rather than with a gesture of wonder. And there is no exceptional number of friars such as is found in Pistoia. The Assisi dossal makes a dramatic stylistic break from the tradition established in the earlier dossals. The general composition is similar to its antecedents: the woman struggles fairly violently as the demon escapes her mouth while the physician holds on to her. However, her arms are spread apart, much like Peter of Foligno in the Pescia and Bardi exorcisms. There are nine laymen, including the physician, as well as a similar number of friars who witness the miracle.

27 Bughetti: 661 suggests that the artist might be representing here the story of a possessed girl who was cured at Francis’ tomb found in III Cel 153. Although we believe that two of the stories in the Pisa dossal are drawn from III Cel, there is no reason to suppose that the exorcism is, since it is clearly rooted in the Pescia tradition with the half-naked woman and two lay witnesses.

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Once again, the architectural space in the Assisi dossal is presented as a specific place; for we see the altar in the Lower Church above Francis’ tomb, and in the background is the altar screen with two pulpits.28 In other words, the viewers are seeing the miracle from the apse, while in the cure of cripples and lepers they witness the cures from near the screen. The fact that we again have so many witnesses must suggest a desire by the artist to say something about this miracle that did not need to be said about any of the others. The Vatican dossal does not repeat the specificity of place found in the Assisi painting. The basic iconographic elements resemble those in the Assisi dossal, but the scene is not recognizably set at the altar of the Lower Church. The artist repeats the friar and candlesticks in front of the altar, but there is a red cloth on top of it here. The woman is presented in an awkward position as she struggles violently with the man who holds her. Like in the Assisi panel, there are numerous lay and ecclesiastical witnesses. The miracle of the healing of Bartholomew of Narni at a bath completes the group of four posthumous miracles. The story is the longest and most complex of all of Celano’s stories of Francis’ posthumous cures. According to I Celano 135, Bartholomew was poor and old. One day he awoke under a tree to discover that he was crippled. Francis appeared to him in a dream and urged him to go to a certain bath, which Celano does not name. Bartholomew asked his bishop what he should do and was told to proceed as Francis had instructed. Bartholomew had considerable difficulty finding the bath until Francis appeared to him again and gave him instructions. When in the water, Bartholomew felt a hand on his foot and another on his leg. He jumped from the bath, praising God and Francis. Berlinghieri does not try to tell the entire story. He shows Bartholomew in the bath and again after the cure. The artist conceives of the bath as a natural spring coming from a rock and flowing into a pool with buildings behind. Bartholomew sits on a rock while holding two crutches. Francis bends over and holds Bartholomew’s foot and leg, which are in the water. The saint is easily recognizable with his nimbus, habit, beard, and stigmata. To the right, the healed man walks away clothed and carrying his crutches. Berlinghieri has made

28 Parts of that altar screen are preserved in the Lower Church in the chapels of Mary Magdalen and Stanislaus.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 233 several important choices in his visual interpretation of this story. First, he decided to ignore the early parts of the story entirely. Second, he focused on the moment of the cure and the result; thus Bartholomew, like the other cripples whom Francis cured in stories contained in the Pescia dossal, is shown both before and after he is healed. However, Bartholomew does not leap from the bath but rather walks away to the right. Third, Berlinghieri decided to place Francis in this scene although Celano does not say that Francis appeared to him at the bath, only that the crippled man felt hands on his foot and leg. Perhaps Berlinghieri included an image of Francis because Celano does tell of two earlier appearances of the saint to Bartholomew. Mysteriously, the artist has chosen not to add any witnesses, although he was careful to do so in the other three posthumous miracles. The presence of this story in the Pescia dossal is important. While the other miracles take place at Francis’ tomb, this one is totally unconnected with Assisi, although it does involve a journey. Thus, while it is correct to see the dossal propagating pilgrimage to Assisi, the presence of the story of Bartholomew makes clear that Francis’ power is not limited to his place of burial. Still, less than one-third of the cures in I Celano take place at the saint’s tomb while threefourths of the scenes of posthumous miracles in the Pescia dossal take place there. It is worth pointing out again that all of the posthumous miracles that Francis performs in the Pescia dossal are among the sorts of miracles that Jesus performed. He cured children, healed cripples, cleansed lepers, and expelled demons. Furthermore, these types of miracles are standard fare for many medieval saints. The choice of miracles identified Francis with Christ the healer, thus complementing the stigmatization, which identifies Francis with the suffering Christ in a new and unique way. These miracles, similar to those of so many other saints, also emphasize that Francis is indeed a saint. After all, when Berlinghieri painted the dossal for Pescia, Francis had been dead only nine years and canonized for just seven. These miracles powerfully advertise the cult of this new saint. The Bardi St Francis Master utilizes Berlinghieri’s general composition but changes many features of the miracle. He shows a slightly later moment in the story, for Francis has his left hand upon Bartholomew’s ankle while with the right he makes a sign of blessing, suggesting that the leg has already been made whole. The reason

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for this particular image of Francis might be to relate it to the central image of the saint in the dossal, for Francis is shown there with his right hand raised in blessing. The bath is conceived as part of the building that it stands in front of; in fact, there is no sense at all of this event being set in nature. Finally, Bartholomew walks away with greater movement than in the Pescia dossal, and his open hand is a gesture of wonder. The Pistoia dossal continues to utilize and expound upon elements found in the two previous panels. However, the bath is now a pool of water in the midst of a group of rocks or coming out of a small mountain. Bartholomew is seated on the rock with his feet dangling over the water, and it is difficult to discern whether he is in fact in the water. Francis stands over the pool, his left hand holding onto Bartholomew’s leg and his right giving a sign of blessing as in the Bardi dossal. There is a piece of architecture behind the bath and another at the far right, a suggestion perhaps of the city of Narni to which Bartholomew is returning. The Pisa dossal sets the scene more in nature with a mountain as the only feature of the background and an artificial pool of water, which is a square structure that is almost completely filled. Bartholomew sits on a ledge in the bath while Francis stands outside it and leans over him, grasping his foot with his left hand and blessing the knee with his right hand. Bartholomew walks away from the scene in a manner similar to the Bardi dossal, but his head is turned back toward the miracle, perhaps in a gesture of remembrance and thanksgiving. The Assisi dossal further modifies this scene although it seems to be resonant with the Pisa dossal because the bath is clearly set in front of a mountain with trees growing nearby. However, it is presented differently; the water is indicated by the color green, but there is no indication except by location that Bartholomew is actually in the water. Bartholomew leaves the site of the healing by walking into a city, not just a gate like in the Pistoia version. This detail emphasizes that Bartholomew made a journey and thus propagates the value of a pilgrimage, a theme that is present in every section of this particular dossal. The Vatican dossal’s version of the cure of Bartholomew of Narni is difficult to read. The cured man’s entrance into the city, such a prominent part of the Assisi dossal, is reduced to one building in the Vatican dossal. Furthermore, the bath is a relatively large build-

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 235 ing that occupies nearly three-fourths of the scene; and it has a decorative cross on the pinnacle of the dome, which is its roof. Francis and Bartholomew are together inside the building and apparently both in the water. The saint’s hands are on Bartholomew’s knee and foot, like in the Pescia dossal. There are several changes that take place in the six versions of this story from the earliest image in Pescia. Francis blesses Bartholomew in four of the six, and the city of Narni is added. Most obviously, however, the bath itself is conceived somewhat differently in each dossal despite the fact that later artists are clearly playing off earlier images that they were acquainted with. The reason for so many different conceptions of a bath must be that the artist has tried to represent a bath that he and his audience were familiar with so that the viewers could know that they were looking at a story that takes place in a bath. With the mountain in the Pistoia dossal, for example, are we looking at a schematic version of the bath at nearby Montecatini, which indeed is set in the foothills of the Apennines? This sort of “local touch” is of the same sort as the specific sites of the other three miracles in the Assisi dossal. Thus, the Assisi artist is not doing something that is new and unheard of but rather operating in a tradition. What he does may be more systematic and thorough than the other artists, but he is not being revolutionary by setting his stories in identifiable local places. Clearly, the Pescia dossal was a great success. The two stories from Francis’ life, the stigmatization and the sermon to the birds, were often repeated in the thirteenth century and beyond; while the importance of the stigmatization is clear, the choice of the sermon to the birds as a story that stands for the chief ministry of the Order, preaching, was not. Other choices included Francis preaching before the sultan, his Christmas sermon at Greccio, and his homily before Pope Honorius III.29 The continued popularity of the sermon to the birds in the visual tradition can be credited at least in part to the influence of the Pescia panel. The four posthumous miracles were also successful. Only one of the four, the cure of cripples and a

29 Francis preaching to the sultan (I Cel 57) and his sermon at Greccio (I Cel 86) are both included in the Bardi dossal in addition to the sermon to the birds. Francis’ sermon before Honorius III (I Cel 73) is included in the fresco cycle of the Upper Church in Assisi, although its direct source there is the Legenda Maior XII, 7.

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leper, underwent serious revision, except in the conflation of stories in the Bardi dossal. Each of the Pescia posthumous miracles appears six times in the surviving dossals, more often than any story from Francis’ life.30 However, the painters of three early dossals included additional posthumous miracles; and it is to these that we now turn. The Bardi St Francis Master rearranged three of the traditional posthumous miracles—adding the cripples to the scene of Francis’ death/funeral and placing the cure of the girl with the twisted neck and the exorcisms in the same section—probably to make space for two other miracles that appear only there. The fact that there was a need to present all four of the miracles from the Pescia dossal only ten years after it was painted is evidence of its almost immediate influence, especially since there are three different scenes of cripples being healed. Let us start with a description of the two new miracles. In the first of them, the eighteenth section of the dossal, a ship is being tossed and turned in the sea. The mast of the ship is broken, and a group of at least eleven men pray to Francis, who stands in the boat in front of them, raising his right hand in blessing. In the following story, a group of ten men who are naked except for loincloths and who are wearing collars with ropes attached and carrying candles, process toward an altar, behind which are two friars. Scholars have struggled to find these two posthumous miracles in Celano’s Vita Prima or his later Tractatus de Miraculis (1250–1252), 30 Fragments survive of a life of Francis painted in the Kalenderhane Camii in Istanbul, now preserved in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. This small, frescoed half-dome consisted of a central figure of Francis plus ten stories from his life. The fresco probably dates from ca. 1250 and almost certainly before 1261 when the Latin Empire fell. Undoubtedly the Franciscans held this church. The only two stories that are clearly identifiable are the sermon to the birds and an exorcism, but there appears to be at least one more miracle that friars witness with awe. The artist was from the West, probably the same person who illuminated the Bible now in the Paris Arsenal. Thus, directly or indirectly, it appears that the influence of the Pescia dossal stretched all the way to the Bosporus. For a description of the fresco and a discussion of the artist, see Cecil Striker and Y. Dogan Kuban, “Work at Kalenderhane Camii in Istanbul: Fifth Preliminary Report,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 29 (1975): 313; Cecil Striker, “Crusader Painting in Constantinople: The Findings at Kalenderhane Camii” in Il medio oriente e l’occidente nell’arte del XIII secolo: Atti del XXIV congresso internazionale di storia dell’arte ed. Hans Belting (Bologna: CLUEB, 1982): 117–121; Gualberto Matteucci, La missione francescana di Costantinopoli (Florence: Edizioni Studi Francescani, 1971): 90–92. See also Dieter Blume, Wandmalerei als Ordenspropaganda: Bildprogramme im Chorbereich franziskanischer Konvente Italiens bis zur Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts (Worms: Werner’sche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1983): 158.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 237 often referred to as III Celano, or even in Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior. Despite ingenious explanations, it is clear that there are no surviving written sources for these two miracles. The most common explanation of the two is that they are a two-scene representation of III Celano 85. According to that story, Francis appeared as a light in the sky to sailors from Ancona who were in danger of shipwreck due to a storm; and he calmed the sea. Later, the grateful sailors presented a cloth to Francis as a gift. We should be immediately suspicious that a story which happened far away from Florence would take such a prominent place—two sections of the panel—in the limited space of a narrative of the life of Francis in Florence. In fact, the eighteenth scene only very loosely follows the first part of the story of the sailors from Ancona in III Celano. Francis stands in the boat rather than appears in the sky, although Francis appears in the sky in an earlier scene in the dossal.31 The painting shows the mast of the ship broken, but that detail is not part of III Celano 85. There are significantly greater problems in identifying the nineteenth scene with the sailors presenting a cloth to Francis. First, the artist has on other occasions taken separate stories or two moments in a single story and placed them in the same scene. This is true, for example, both in the death/funeral plus the cure of cripples and also in the cure of the girl with the twisted neck combined with the exorcisms. There is no occasion in which the artist has taken two sections of the panel to tell a single story, even if that story has distinct parts.32 There is even a section of the dossal in which Francis appears twice.33 Therefore, one should be suspicious of any explanation that the Bardi St Francis Master used a different narrative

31 In his appearance to the chapter at Arles, a bust of Francis appears above in an act of blessing. 32 In the ninth scene, based on I Cel 77–78, the artist has only told one part of the rather involved story instead of trying to include all parts of it. The same is true, of course, of the way that the story of Bartholomew of Narni was presented. The earliest example of an artist using two separate spaces to tell parts of a single story occurs in a two-part posthumous miracle of the raising from the dead of a boy killed when a building collapsed; these two frescoes are in the right transept of the Lower Church in Assisi and date from the second decade of the fourteenth century. See below for more discussion of these frescoes. 33 In the fourteenth section of the dossal, Francis appears seated with a leper on his lap and also bending over and washing the feet of a leper. Thus, he appears both like Mary with the Christ child and like Christ washing the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper.

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technique in the eighteenth and nineteenth scenes. Another problem with interpreting the nineteenth scene as the sailors presenting a cloth to Francis is that there is no cloth in it, although a damaged section in the center of the altar looks a bit like a cloth, especially in photographs. Furthermore, if this scene shows grateful sailors offering a cloth to Francis, why are they represented as penitents? There is nothing to suggest a penitential dimension of this story in III Celano 85. Yet their nakedness plus the collars around their necks clearly suggest penitents, especially since in an earlier scene of Francis doing public penance, he is dressed that way.34 The candles suggest a procession that has reached its destination in a Franciscan church, represented as an altar with two friars behind it. Recently, Chiara Frugoni has suggested that these two scenes have I Celano 55 as their source.35 That story takes place during Francis’ life. He was on a ship that had weathered a storm, and all of the food on board had been consumed. Francis multiplied some provisions that had been given to him so that all on board could eat. There is nothing in the eighteenth scene to suggest hunger or the multiplication of food; thus that section of the panel would be completely illegible if were meant to represent I Celano 55. At the end of that story, there is a standard statement that the sailors thanked God after their rescue. That can hardly be sufficient basis for the nineteenth scene. In addition to these problems, we have no example of an image containing stories from the Franciscan legend that does not separate events in his life from his posthumous miracles.36

34 The viewer is encouraged to make the visual connection between Francis in the eleventh scene and these men coming to the altar in the nineteenth scene. 35 Frugoni: 34–37. 36 The stained glass window with stories of Francis’ life by the St Francis Master (an Umbrian painter, not to be confused with the Bardi St Francis Master) in the Upper Church in Assisi is often described as presenting the cure of Bartholomew of Narni between his vision at San Damiano and Innocent III’s dream of the Lateran. However, we believe that, despite similarities with the traditional iconography of Bartholomew of Narni, the second scene of the window is Francis and a leper. First, if this interpretation is correct, the events follow chronologically; for according to the Legenda Maior, the written source for this window, Francis cured lepers after his vision at San Damiano but before going to Rome (I,II,1; I,II,6; I,III,9). Second, there is nothing in the window to indicate water; yet we know that the artists who painted this story went to great lengths to show a recognizable bath. The same artist has illustrated water in one of the stories from the life of Anthony of Padua in the adjacent lancet. Third, we do not see the person in the story walking away cured as we always do in the cure of Bartholomew of Narni. Fourth,

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 239 And the fact that Francis appears in the ship is not evidence that this story occurred while he was alive because he also appears in the twentieth scene, the posthumous cure of Bartholomew of Narni. Dieter Blume believes that the eighteenth and nineteenth scenes have no written source and that instead they are generic miracles.37 This is possible, and we have already suggested that there are some generic elements in the early representations of posthumous miracles beginning with the Pescia dossal in 1235. However, at least two of the miracle scenes in the Bardi panel are of quite specific incidents—the cure of the girl with the twisted neck and the healing of Bartholomew of Narni. Furthermore, the Bardi St Francis Master in general does not create generic scenes, even when there were obvious opportunities to do so. Instead of a generic preaching scene, for example, there are three different stories of Francis preaching—to the faithful at Greccio, to the birds, and to the Sultan. Instead of having a general story of Francis rescuing lambs, there are two distinct incidents described in I Celano that are represented in the ninth and tenth sections. Clearly, the eighteenth scene is the story of Francis saving sailors whose ship has been damaged by a storm. The most likely explanation is that this is a local story of Francis rescuing a Florentine ship, an unrecorded but specific event. And the nineteenth scene is a separate incident. The iconography suggests that Francis inspired a local penitential movement and that part of the event was a procession to the altar of Santa Croce. In the scene, one friar greets the penitents while the other gestures toward heaven in wonder. Thus, these two scenes for which the artist has made room by squeezing together some of the stories from received tradition are

Bartholomew’s cure is not included in the Legenda Maior, and it is unlikely that a work for the Upper Church in Assisi would include a story that had been suppressed. Fifth, one would expect in Assisi that any posthumous miracle represented would have taken place there; however, the Bartholomew of Narni story is the only one of the four traditional posthumous miracles that has nothing to do with Assisi. One possible explanation is that the window was in production at the time when Celano’s writings were being rejected in favor of the Legenda Maior. Perhaps a somewhat different program of Francis’ life was required than the one that the artist had begun. The story of Bartholomew of Narni was thus “salvaged” by being adapted for a new function. At any rate, this is the only example we have of this image or anything remotely like it being part of a narrative life of Francis. See Cook, Images: #21. 37 Blume: 17.

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there because there is no written account of them in the saint’s vitae. They are part of the story of Francis’ presence in Florence and among Florentines. And they are there so that they will not be forgotten. Later we will argue that the same principle is at work in posthumous miracles in the Pisa and Orte dossals as well, and there is reason to believe that it is also the basis for a preaching scene in the altarpiece in Pistoia.38 What little we know about the patronage of the Bardi panel supports such a reading of its eighteenth and nineteenth scenes. Two independent seventeenth-century documents associate the origin of the panel with Bartolo Tedaldi.39 One of them can be read to say that some of the miracles that Bartolo received from Francis are on the panel. If that is the case, we must assume that they are the eighteenth and nineteenth scenes, since all of the others can be identified. Thus, Bartolo and/or a ship of his may have been rescued through prayers to St Francis. And perhaps he along with others underwent a conversion or achieved a reconciliation with enemies or had some other sort of penitential experience by means of the grace of Francis. Later, Bartolo commissioned the dossal and had stories of his spiritual encounters with Francis included in it.40 There is one specific piece of information that gives us at least a bit more confidence in seeing the eighteenth and nineteenth scenes as local miracles. In 1244, the General Chapter sent out a call for friars to write down stories about Francis to be used in a new version of the saint’s life. After all, friars were dying, and stories about the saint were being lost. Thomas of Celano then produced his Vita

38 Oddly, there is no depiction of Francis’ sermon to the birds in the Pistoia dossal; in its place is a scene of Francis preaching penance from a pulpit. Often this is regarded as a generic preaching scene. However, it makes greater sense to see it as a story of Francis preaching in Pistoia. The pulpit in the scene is decorated very much like Pistoia’s baptismal font. Neither I nor II Cel tells a story of Francis preaching in Pistoia, although he might well have been there. The lack of a written record of Francis’ presence in Pistoia is the very reason to record the event in the dossal. It must not be forgotten that Francis’ life included a visit to Pistoia! See Cook, Images: #145. 39 One document is printed in Saturnino Mencherini (ed.), Santa Croce di Firenze; Memorie e documenti (Florence: Tip. Fiorenza, 1929): 51. The other is in Rivista d’arte 4 (1906): 103–104. Both are excerpted and discussed in Boskovits, Origins: 501–502. 40 It is also possible that he left money and instructions in his will. However, there was a Bartolo Tedaldi alive in Florence in 1261. If this is the same person, the date is too late for the Bardi dossal. See Boskovits, Origins: 113.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 241 Secunda (II Celano) by 1247. However, it was criticized because of its lack of posthumous miracles, and Celano “corrected” this oversight with his Tractatus de Miraculis. In the latter work, there are no posthumous that took place in Florence, presumably because the friars did not submit any. If the Bardi dossal dates to ca. 1245, then someone like Bartolo Tedaldi could have known that the friars did not submit any such stories. Consequently, he might have prescribed that the dossal contain at least these two events involving himself and other Florentines, thus “correcting” the friars, whose failure to report local miracles made it likely that these stories would eventually be forgotten. Certainly our proposal cannot be proved. However, other attempts to identify these stories have failed, and the reason is primarily that many scholars have assumed that the stories must be from an official written source. Our view does not start with that premise, and our reconstruction of the content of these stories fits the evidence better than any other explanations that we know of. Our basic approach to the stories, that they are there in order to preserve local occurrences, is fortified below by looking at stories in the Pisa and Orte dossals. The panel in Pisa contains six posthumous miracles, the four that are commonly represented plus two others. Neither of these additional miracles is found in I Celano. One is the cure of a woman who was struck blind and the other the cure of a woman with a goiter. Both are recorded in III Celano. Celano’s Tractatus de Miraculis 103 tells the story of a woman in a village in Campania who insisted on finishing some work on the feast of St Francis rather than properly venerating the saint. Her daughter’s mouth became distorted, and her eyes fell out of their sockets. When the mother threw herself on the ground, promised to observe the feast of St Francis in the future, and pledged to feed the poor on that day, the daughter was restored to health. In the visual adaptation of this story, the daughter reclines on a couch, her mouth appearing to be normal but her eyeballs dangling from veins and hanging on her cheeks. Behind the couch, the mother stands and implores Francis, who appears holding a book in one hand and blessing the daughter with the other. This story is quite different from the ones that we have previously examined, for the physical condition of the girl was the direct result of her mother’s rejection of Francis by ignoring his feast. Since this

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story is one of more than one hundred posthumous miracles in III Celano, the obvious question is why was it selected for inclusion in the dossal in Pisa? It is not a local miracle; thus, there is no reason to include it in order to preserve the memory of an event in sacred history that took place in or near Pisa. Of course, it is always possible that there was some connection between the friars in Pisa and the people involved in this miracle, but we doubt that this is the reason for the story’s representation in the Pisa dossal. It was probably selected because it was relevant to events in Pisa at the time the dossal was made. Perhaps there were people in Pisa who did not celebrate Francis’ feast because of lost time and/or wages. We certainly know that not everyone in Italy and Europe immediately venerated Francis and accepted all the stories told about him. Clear documentation exists, for example, that identifies a lot of controversy about Francis’ stigmata throughout the thirteenth century;41 and there are also very good reasons to attribute some changes in the iconography of St Francis, especially in the mid-thirteenth century, to a visual response to doubts about Francis’ stigmata.42 More specifically, Pope Alexander IV issued a bull in 1255 requiring that all Christians celebrate Francis’ feast. Of course, there is no need for such a bull unless there are people who are ignoring the feast of the new saint from Assisi. Thus, the most plausible explanation for the presence in the Pisa dossal of the story of the mother who did not venerate St Francis on his feast is that it was a warning to those in Pisa who were inclined to ignore this new feast day of the Church. If Belting is right that these early panels were originally displayed only on cer-

41 For a thorough discussion of objections to the stigmata, see André Vauchez, “Les Stigmates de Saint François et leurs Détracteurs dans les derniers Siècles du Moyen Age,” Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire 80 (1968): 595–625. 42 The image of Francis by the St Francis Master now in the Museum of the Porziuncola in Assisi was probably at least in part a response to objections to the stigmata, especially the side wound, which occurred during the pontificate of Alexander IV (1254–1261). In addition to being probably the first Italian image of Francis that shows his side wound through a tear in the habit, there is a long inscription about his wounds at the bottom. Furthermore, another inscription on the panel suggests that the cross was Francis’ bed. For a brief discussion of the circumstances at the time this painting was made, see Cook, “Margarito d’Arezzo’s Images of St Francis: A Different Approach to Chronology,” Arte cristiana 83 (1995): 84. For a thorough discussion of this image, see Cook, Images: #32, and Elvio Lunghi, Il crocefisso di Giunta Pisano e l’icona del ‘Maestro di San Francesco’ (Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola, 1995): 65–91.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 243 tain feasts, we can imagine how effective the depiction of this miracle would be.43 There appears to be a major problem with the above interpretation of this section of the dossal—no one looking at it could know from the picture itself that the story has anything to do with a decision not to honor Francis on his feast day. Unless people knew this somewhat remote story from III Celano, they could only assume that it was a traditional cure of an unfortunate person with eye disease. This leaves us with two options. One is to reject this identification of the story and thus to interpret it as an unrecorded miracle rather than the story in III Celano. The fact that the girl’s mouth is not twisted would reinforce this position. However, we prefer the other option. We do not know the location of this painting at the time it was commissioned or if it was always on display; certainly when it was displayed, it must have been on an altar. We must imagine that this dossal was not simply put somewhere for people to examine, but that it was used in the context of the liturgy, specifically by preachers. We can imagine this and the other dossals being used as props in homilies to the faithful. A friar might point to the miracles that took place at Francis’ tomb to encourage those who were crippled or possessed to make a pilgrimage to Assisi. A preacher may tell the story that precedes the cure of Bartholomew of Narni in order to make a point about listening for Francis’ voice or validating a vision with ecclesiastical authorities or not giving up hope even after getting lost. If these sorts of exhortations occurred, and they almost certainly did, we can equally imagine a friar telling this story, pointing to those hideous eyeballs hanging on the girl’s cheeks, and warning people of the dangers of angering the saint.44 The other miracle from III Celano that appears in the Pisa dossal is the cure of a woman with a goiter (III Celano 193). A noble woman from the castle at Galete (location not known) had a large goiter that hung down between her breasts. One day she went into a Franciscan church (not identified more specifically) to pray. While there she discovered a book containing the life and miracles of

43

See Belting: 379. The theme of the vengeance of saints is discussed in Vauchez, La saintété en Occident aux les derniers Siècles du Moyen Age (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 1981): 531. 44

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Francis, presumably I Celano. After reading from it, she prayed that Francis would heal her; after a while at prayer, she was cured. The artist has placed this scene in a Franciscan church. There is an altar that is clearly not meant to represent Francis’ tomb but has some similarities to it; behind it are two friars. The woman stands to the left with a large flesh-colored sac hanging from her neck. There are touches of red paint on the sac, suggesting that it was bleeding or infected. Both of her hands support the goiter. To the left she leaves, and the goiter is no longer there. Thus, this scene is set up in quite a traditional manner, following the three tomb miracles that are also part of this painting. Since this section of the dossal is in form so much like the four traditionally represented posthumous miracles, why did someone want to include it in the Pisa altarpiece? In seeking to answer this question, it is worthwhile to recall the origins of the stories in III Celano. In 1244, the General Chapter sent out a call to friars to send stories about Francis so that a new vita could be written. There were a lot of stories that Thomas of Celano did not have available when he wrote the Vita Prima, and also some stories were being lost as friars died. By 1247, Celano produced the Vita Secunda, which did not include posthumous miracles. However, we have every reason to believe that posthumous miracles would have been sent to Celano since his Vita Prima included forty such cures. Celano’s Vita Secunda was apparently criticized precisely because it ignored posthumous miracles. Thus he composed the Tractatus de Miraculis, which contains a few stories from the saint’s life, most importantly the story of Lady Jacoba coming to visit the dying Francis, but is overwhelmingly made up of cures he effected after his death. Some of the miracles in III Celano are repeated from the Vita Prima, but most are new. And the new miracles took place in sixty different places, with no one place having more than four. The miracle stories are not equally distributed throughout Italy. For example there are very few from Lombardy, only one from Assisi, and none from Florence. However, there are three specifically mentioning Pisa, suggesting that the friars there did submit posthumous miracles. None of these miracles, however, took place in San Francesco in Pisa. Unfortunately for us, the castle of Galete cannot be located; but our suspicion is that it was near Pisa and that the church that the woman prayed in was San Francesco in Pisa. However, as Celano tells the story, the woman entered an unidentified Franciscan church.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 245 Since Galete was not well known and the location of the church was not mentioned, no one reading the story would associate it with Pisa. If this is so, then it would make sense to include it in the dossal in Pisa so that it would not be forgotten.45 Thus the two “new” miracles in the Pisa dossal both function differently than the four traditional miracles inherited from Berlinghieri’s work in Pescia. One deals with the issue of the veneration of the saint while the other preserves the memory of an important local event that otherwise could be largely ignored. In different ways, local matters are responsible for the inclusion of both of these stories. Since there are art historians who are convinced that the Pisa dossal is much earlier than the publication of III Celano in 1254,46 we need to ask whether it is possible that oral versions of the two “new” miracles in the Pisa painting were its sources. Of course, it is possible, especially with regard to the local miracle of the woman with the goiter. However, the other story took place far away from Pisa. Although it could have been passed on orally, we think it more likely that it was Celano’s collection of miracle stories that was used as the basis for the dossal. Furthermore, since three miracles in III Celano involve Pisans, there is no reason to think that the story of the woman with the goiter would have been chosen unless it was in danger of being lost due to lack of specificity. In fact, the three miracles associated with Pisa are not merely additional cures. One involves shipwreck, one a woman who conceived a child with the aid of Francis and was told to name the boy Francesco, and one the cure of a man with a hernia while he was preparing to kill himself because of the pain. None of these, especially the first two, repeats the sort of miracle presented in the four traditional scenes. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that it is to preserve the story of the woman with the goiter as a local story and to show it as taking place in San Francesco in Pisa that led to its inclusion in the dossal in Pisa. The fact that the pope issued a bull concerning the observation of the feast of St Francis combined with the presence of the story of the girl whose eyeballs had fallen out because her

45 The preceding discussion of the miracles in III Cel is based on Jacques Paul, “L’image de Saint François dans le Traite ‘De Miraculis’ de Thomas de Celano” in San Francesco nella storia: Atti del primo convegno di studi per l’VIII centenario della nascita di S. Francesco (1182–1982) (Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1983): 251–274. 46 See above, n. 5.

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mother had ignored the feast of St Francis is further evidence for a late date for this painting. The dossal that was in San Francesco in San Miniato al Tedesco (between Pisa and Florence) is known only through a seventeenthcentury drawing. According to that drawing, the date 1228 was inscribed on the panel. Although some scholars have accepted it as the time the painting was made, there are others, including ourselves, who are convinced that the panel was not painted that early. It contained the sermon to the birds and the stigmatization and four posthumous miracles. Three were commonly represented ones—the cures of the girl with the twisted neck and of Bartholomew of Narni in the bath plus the exorcisms. The fourth appears to be the cure of the girl whose eyeballs fell out of her head when her mother refused to venerate Francis on his feast day. We cannot be sure because the drawing does not give us enough details, and there is an extra person invoking Francis. We think that the artist at San Miniato substituted this story for the cure of cripples and lepers that usually appears with the other three. Since there are already two cures of cripples (the stories of the girl with the twisted neck and of Bartholomew) as well as two that take place at Francis’ tomb (the girl with the twisted neck and the exorcisms), it made sense to substitute some story of more immediate concern for the third scene containing cures of cripples. Once again, we can imagine there being at San Miniato al Tedesco objections to keeping the feast of St Francis. This story in the dossal plus sermons that explained it fully might have been a strong antidote to indifference toward Francis’ feast there as well as in Pisa. The dossal in Orte contains four narrative sections, one of which is a posthumous miracle. Although the panel is often dated in the 1280s based on an old but not original inscription on the back, there is convincing evidence that the dossal was produced ca. 1260, when the friars moved into a large church inside the walls of the city. Furthermore, one of the stories depicted in the Orte panel is found only in II Celano, and we must keep in mind that all of Celano’s books about Francis were ordered destroyed by the General Chapter in 1266. Other reasons for a date of ca. 1260 for the Orte dossal will become clear when we examine the posthumous miracle.47 47 The dating of the panel in Orte is discussed at length in Cook, “The Orte Dossal.”

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 247 Most scholars who have written about the Orte dossal have presumed that the posthumous miracle is either the story in III Celano 6–7 or III Celano 8–9 because both of these stories involve a painting of St Francis, and the Orte artist created a scene in which a painting of the saint is a prominent part. However, close examination makes clear that neither of those III Celano’s stories is the subject of this section of the painting. In the first of these stories, a man has doubts about the stigmata after seeing them in a painting of the saint. He soon discovers a wound in his left hand although there was no mark on the glove he was wearing. After he believed in the stigmata, his hand was healed. This story is not what the artist in Orte has painted because the most prominent person in the scene does not wear a glove or have a wound in his hand or even have his left hand visible. In the second of Celano’s stories, a woman has a painting of Francis without stigmata, and they miraculously appear. When she begins to doubt the miracle, they disappear. This is not the story in the Orte panel because there is no woman in a prominent place, and there is no way for a viewer to reconstruct the story and its meaning by looking at it. We can conclude with confidence that the story represented in the Orte dossal is not to be found in any of Celano’s lives of the saint or any other written source. As we have seen in the case of the two undocumented stories in the Bardi dossal, we can use other kinds of evidence plus our imaginations to decipher the stories in question. In the case of the Orte panel, there are two relevant pieces of information that allow us at least tentatively to identify the subject of this painting. First, it is necessary to describe the three other stories in the panel. The two at the top are standard Franciscan fare—the stigmatization and the sermon to the birds. However, the story in the lower left, opposite the posthumous miracle, is unique to this panel. The depicted event took place in Alessandria in Lombardy and is recounted in II Celano 78–79. The night before Francis was to preach there, he was invited to a dinner where he ate a piece of capon. During supper, a beggar came to the table, and Francis gave him a piece of the capon. As Francis was preaching the next day, the beggar held up the piece of capon and denounced the saint as a hypocrite since he appeared poor but ate rich food. However, the piece of capon appeared to the crowd to be a fish. Afterwards, the man did penitence and begged forgiveness from Francis. Based on the location of this story and Celano’s language, it is clear that the man was a Cathar; and thus

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this is the story of the conversion of a heretic.48 The artist has chosen to present Francis preaching and the man holding up a fish. In addition to the subject matter of the third story in the Orte dossal, we need to know that in the part of Italy where Orte is located, it was Franciscans and not Dominicans who were responsible for the Inquisition.49 And indeed there were Cathars in the area around Orte during the thirteenth century. We know of a papal order to the Bishop of Orte to inquire in his diocese about heresy, and in 1242 a certain Giovanni da Orte was the leader of a group of heretics. In 1260, the Franciscan inquisitor was involved in the case of Capello of the diocese of Orte; he fled to Rome but ultimately helped the pope to find and root out heretics. From this evidence, we cannot conclude what specific event is represented in the fourth scene of the Orte panel. However, we can with some confidence propose that it concerns a Cathar. The story from Alessandria is uniquely depicted in Orte and thus must have had some special meaning in that place and at that time the dossal was commissioned, for it was not even included a few years later in Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior. Since there were Cathars in and around Orte and it was the Franciscans who were charged with dealing with them, this story of the folly of the Cathar at Alessandria and his later conversion (let us not forget that preachers would have told the full story) is an important one. Turning to the fourth section of the dossal, we find people on either side of an altar and a painting of Francis hanging over it. There is a man on the left who is moving toward a man on the right whose open arms await him. The other people on the left, however, appear to be disengaged from the movement of the principal figure. Perhaps this is a reconciliation between a repentant heretic and his father and family or with the civic authorities that took place in the church of the friars in Orte, the latter indicated by a prominently placed image of the saint. That this miracle took place through prayers to St Francis was important to preserve. Yet it was not written down in any of the official lives of the saint, probably because it occurred after Celano’s writings

48 See Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources, ed. Marion Habig (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973): 595, n. 109. 49 For the role of the Franciscans in the Inquisition in central Italy, see Mariano d’Alatri, “L’inquisizione francescana nell’Italia centrale nel secolo XIII,” Collectanea francescana 22 (1952): 225–250 & 23 (1953): 51–165.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 249 were completed. Thus, it was preserved in the Orte dossal as an example of Francis’ intercession and the success of the friars of Orte. The miracle depicted at Orte is not just one more miracle to add to the collection of those represented in the early paintings. It is a different sort of miracle. It is an ecclesial miracle, one which deals not with physical healing but spiritual and intellectual healing. It is also a miracle that is perhaps as much about the work of the friars at the time the painting was made as it was about Francis and his personal sanctity. The juxtaposition of the story of the heretic in Alessandria and the reconciliation in Orte in which Francis appears only in a painting is powerful. As we will see, the sort of miracle that is found in the Orte panel will be included at the end of the century in the fresco cycle of the Franciscan legend in the Upper Church in Assisi. After the publication of Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, the depiction of posthumous miracles almost ceases. Although Bonaventure includes posthumous miracles in his version of Francis’ life, he does not repeat any of the miracles that were contained in the early dossals. Since the Legenda Maior was the only officially sanctioned life of the saint for the Franciscans after 1266, these stories also disappeared from the visual tradition. However, there were more profound reasons for their disappearance than the failure of Bonaventure to include in the Legenda Maior the specific posthumous miracles so often depicted beginning in Pescia in 1235; and thus they probably would have declined in importance even had Bonaventure included them. One of the purposes of the posthumous miracles in the early panels was to make the case that Francis was indeed a saint by showing him doing what saints traditionally have done—heal people with injuries and illnesses. By the 1260s, it was hardly necessary to present miracles to convince people that Francis was a saint. Second, these posthumous miracles showed how Francis was like other saints. By the 1260s, the emphasis had shifted to the friars boldly proclaiming how their saint was unique and different from other saints. Of course, that movement did not begin in the 1260s; from the time of Francis’ death, the friars boldly proclaimed Francis’ stigmata, and even the earliest paintings showed him with the marks of Christ on his hands and feet.50 However, his side wound does not appear in Italian

50

When Francis died, Brother Elias wrote to the friars to inform them of this;

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painting until the mid-1250s, a sign of the emergence of a bolder view of Francis’ unique likeness to Christ. Another reason for the posthumous miracles in the early paintings was to advertise Assisi as a place of pilgrimage. Probably this too was essentially unnecessary by the 1260s. Another of the reasons for the posthumous miracles in the early paintings was to assure people that although Francis was no longer physically present on earth, he was nevertheless active in the world. Thus, the image of Francis appears twice in the posthumous miracles in Pescia and once in the their repetition in the other panels. Furthermore, he appears in one of the two additional miracles in both the Bardi and Pisa dossals. There were events in Francis’ life, however, that also testified to his presence even when physically absent—the saint’s appearance to a friar at the Chapter at Arles and his apparition to several friars at Rivo Torto in a fiery chariot. The former story already was a part of the Bardi dossal and a window in the Upper Church, and the latter story is a part of the dossal of ca.1280 from Colle Val d’Elsa, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. Both stories are incorporated into the fresco cycle of the Upper Church in Assisi. Thus, these stories, which had meaning in addition to testifying to Francis’ spiritual presence, made the posthumous miracles less valuable and even expendable. There are more subtle reasons for the turning away from posthumous miracles. When Francis was canonized in 1228, saints were thought of primarily as thaumaturges. However, during the thirteenth century the definition of a saint was undergoing change, in large part because of the impact of Francis and the Franciscans. There was more attention paid to the saint’s life, especially as it modeled the life of Christ and the apostles. Thus, a saint served not only as a healer but as a pattern of life to be imitated. In Francis’ case, not only was he regarded by some as literally a pattern for the life of friars but also more generally as a model for all Christians. The existence of the Third Order and many penitent societies under Franciscan sponsorship testify to this.

and he also proclaimed the stigmata to be, “a new thing among miracles.” The text of Elias’ letter is translated in The Founder: 489–491. There are legitimate questions about the authenticity of this letter, but we believe that it is probably genuine.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 251 There is evidence that this shift in the concept of sanctity was taking place in the mid-thirteenth century among Franciscans. The lack of posthumous miracles in II Celano followed by criticism for this omission and the subsequent publication of Celano’s Tractatus de miraculis is important. The Bardi dossal is also an important piece of evidence. Of the twenty sections, fifteen contain stories from his life (including his death and funeral). This ratio of three stories from Francis’ life to one after his death is quite different from the Pescia dossal (two posthumous miracles for each story from Francis’ life), and yet the Bardi panel was painted only a decade later. In it, there are actually six posthumous miracles, but they are squeezed together (the cure of the girl with the twisted neck and the exorcisms) or placed in an event in the narrative of Francis’ life (the cripples at Francis’ death and funeral). On the other hand, there is not the same squeezing together of stories in the narrative of Francis’ life; for example, there are three stories about preaching and two involving Francis rescuing lambs. Thus the Bardi dossal suggests that new concepts of sanctity were present among the friars in Florence in the 1240s. The fact that the friars from Florence apparently sent no stories of posthumous miracles to Thomas of Celano for inclusion in his new life of Francis is also significant. However, the Pisa, Assisi, and Vatican dossals, all of which are later than the Bardi dossal and all containing only posthumous miracles, remind us that the new idea of sanctity did not simply replace the old one but that the old and new co-existed. Thus there were still those who continued to view Francis principally as a healer while others focused on Francis’ model of life; and of course probably virtually everyone recognized that both ways of viewing Francis were valid. Another piece of evidence about old and new views of sanctity among the friars comes by examining the stories that Celano published in his Tractatus de Miraculis. As discussed above, there are very few miracles in III Celano from Lombardy and none from Florence. In addition, there was only one new miracle from Assisi and one from Siena. These figures suggest that the friars in those places did not have Francis as thaumaturge as their principal agenda.51 These

51 The Assisi dossal of ca. 1250 with four posthumous miracles appears to contradict the idea that the friars in Assisi held the new view of Francis’ sanctity.

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were probably the precise places where the life rather than the miracles of Francis was becoming the center of the cult of the saint. When we look at visual narratives of the life of Francis from 1260 to 1290, we find an absence of posthumous miracles. Two narratives in the Basilica in Assisi survive from those decades; yet neither the fresco cycle in the Lower Church nor the stained glass window in the Upper Church, both works of the St Francis Master, contain a posthumous miracle.52 The former ends with the saint’s death, the latter with the stigmatization. The last of the great dossals, the one from Colle Val d’Elsa now in Siena, contains eight stories from the saint’s life and no posthumous miracles, although there appear to be several cripples at the death and funeral of Francis, the final story, in a manner similar to their presence in the same scene in the Bardi dossal.53 Other fragmentary cycles of the Franciscan legend from 1260 to 1290 lack posthumous miracles as far as we can tell.54 There are four posthumous miracles in the most famous of all the cycles of the life of Francis, the twenty-eight frescoes in the Upper Church traditionally ascribed to Giotto. However, they are miracles that were not in I Celano and in two cases also not in III Celano but that were included in Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior. These miracles are not only different stories from those depicted in the early dossals, but they are also different types of miracles. The first is Gregory IX’s vision of Francis in which the saint convinces the pope that his side wound is real by giving him a vial of blood that has flowed from it. The second is the cure of a man in Spain who had

However, we must remember that three of those four miracles occurred in the presence of the saint’s body, which was buried in the Basilica of San Francesco. In other words, the unique situation of Assisi probably explains the commissioning of the dossal for the Lower Church, perhaps for the very altar under which Francis was buried. 52 The second story in the Upper Church window is often identified as the cure of Bartholomew of Narni, and indeed there is a lot of resemblance between it and the traditional depiction of that miracle. See n. 33. 53 For an analysis of this dossal, see Cook, “The St. Francis Dossal in Siena: An Important Interpretation of the Life of Francis of Assisi,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 87 (1994): 3–20. See also Cook, Images: #180. 54 These include frescoes of the sermon to the birds and the stigmatization in San Fermo Maggiore, Verona (ca. 1260), and frescoes of the dream of Innocent III and Francis’ renunciation before the bishop in San Francesco, Gubbio (ca. 1280). See Cook, Images: #201, #86.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 253 been attacked by bandits. However, the point of the story in both the Legenda Maior and the frescoes is specifically to testify to the power of Francis’ stigmata. The third posthumous miracle is the resuscitation of a woman who died without confessing a mortal sin; in the fresco, she sits up and confesses to a friar while an angel chases away the demon that had come for her soul. Finally, we have the miraculous release from prison of a repentant heretic, complete with a bishop kneeling in a prayer of thanksgiving to the saint. The first two miracles are really about the stigmata, and in fact several of the preceding representations of events surrounding the saint’s death also focus on Christ’s wounds in Francis, especially the one in the side.55 The second two miracles are ecclesial, that is they are about the role of the Franciscan Order in the Church.56 One is about administering the sacrament of penance while the other concerns Francis “helping” a bishop who had held in prison a man who had repented his heresy and become orthodox. None of these miracles was much replicated in fourteenth-century paintings of the Franciscan legend.57 One possible reason for the rarity of these posthumous miracles clearly has to do with space. There is no surviving cycle from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries that

55 In addition to the stigmatization itself, the funeral scene shows friars kissing the wounds. There is a story of the authentication of the stigmata in which a knight puts his hand in the saint’s side, and Clare places her hand in Francis’ side wound when his body is brought to San Damiano. 56 For a discussion of the movement toward ecclesial miracles in the thirteenth century, see Vauchez, “Jacques de Voragine et les saints du XIIIe s. dans la Légende Dorée” in Legenda Aurea: Sept Siècles de Diffusion ed. Brenda Dunn-Lardeau (Montreal: Editions Bellarmin & Paris: Libraire J. Vrin, 1986): 56. 57 In addition to those examples of posthumous miracles in works that at least depended in part on the frescoes in the Upper Church discussed below, it is necessary to mention the badly damaged dossal of ca. 1300 in the Museo Nazionale in Siracusa, originally from San Francesco in that city. The stories are hard to identify because of the condition of the panel. However, one section, the eleventh, has been described as a miracle taking place at Francis’ tomb. This is possibly a correct identification. However, the story in the eleventh scene takes place between the death/funeral of Francis and Francis’ appearance to Brother Augustine immediately after his death. That story is followed by the authentication of the stigmata by the knight Jerome. Thus, if the identification of the eleventh scene as a miracle at the tomb is indeed correct, the order is quite different than in the Assisi frescoes. For this panel, see Enrico Mauceri, “Opere d’arte inedite nel R. museo di Siracusa,” Bollettino d’arte 7 (1913): 449 ff. More recently, see Klaus Krüger, Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien (Berlin: Mann, 1992): 137–139, 206. See Cook, Images: #185.

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contains as many stories as the Assisi frescoes.58 Thus, for example, there are seven stories in Giotto’s version of Francis’ life in Santa Croce in Florence and fourteen stories in Taddeo Gaddi’s panels for an armadio in Santa Croce. Some choices had to be made, and overwhelmingly the posthumous miracles were sacrificed although there are also stories from Francis’ life in the Assisi cycle that are rarely reproduced and even one for which there is no surviving replication. Generally, posthumous miracles were a low priority after the Assisi cycle was completed. Perhaps this is in part because the disputes over the stigmata waned after the end of the thirteenth century, and there were also stories that took place during Francis’ life that made claims for the role of the friars in the Church. For example, the story of the death of the knight of Celano illustrated the role of the friars in hearing confessions. The vision of Gregory IX is found in a sculptural fragment from a tomb in San Francesco in Siena, datable to within a decade of the prototype.59 It is also found twice in San Francesco in Bologna, once in a fresco cycle of ca.1325 by Francesco da Rimini60 and once in the late fourteenth-century sculpted altar.61 The story of the cure of the man from Lerida appears in a fresco cycle of ca. 1295 from San Francesco in Rieti, the earliest surviving cycle based on the Assisi frescoes.62 It is also part of Francesco da Rimini’s cycle in Bologna. A lost panel formerly in the Sren Collection in Stockholm contained this story too, but we know nothing about the work of which it was once a part of the predella.63 There are no surviving

58 The long cycles at Castelvecchio Subequo in the Abruzzi and from the cloister of Santa Croce in Florence, both works of the late fourteenth century, are damaged in such a way that we cannot be certain whether there were posthumous miracles. 59 See Antje Middeldorf Kosegarten, Sieneisische Bildhauer am Duomo Vecchio: Studien zur Skulptur in Siena 1250–1330 (Munich: Bruckmann, 1984): 127–128. See Cook, Images: #171. 60 For this cycle, see Antonio Corbari, “Il ciclo francescano di Francesco da Rimini,” Romagna storia e arte 12 (1984): 5–62. 61 For the contents of this work of 1388–1392 by Jacobello and Pierpaolo dalle Masegne, see Bughetti: 727; see also John Pope-Hennessy, Italian Gothic Sculpture (New York: Random House, rpt.1985): 203–204. 62 See Cook, “The Cycle of the Life of Francis of Assisi in Rieti: The First ‘Copy’ of the Assisi Frescoes,” Collectanea francescana 65 (1995): 115–147. 63 See Todini: v.2, 167.

representation of posthumous miracles of st francis 255 images based on the Assisi fresco of the revival of the woman, and the release of Peter the heretic is found only in the Rieti cycle.64 There is a detail in the painting of the canonization of Francis in the fresco cycle of the Upper Church that deserves some attention. It is the most damaged of all the frescoes in the cycle and is often passed over by scholars as well as by visitors to the Basilica. There is a great throng around an altar, which is also Francis’ temporary tomb. In front of the altar is a woman lying down. To the left is a woman with a child whose gown is the same color as the woman in front of the tomb. There must be some reference here to cures taking place at Francis’ tomb. Could these figures be the little girl with the twisted neck and her mother? If so, did the artist know the story or simply adapt these figures from earlier images, one of which, the Assisi dossal, was in the Lower Church? We cannot know for sure, but it is tempting to see these figures as shadows of a tradition that dominated Franciscan narrative painting in the thirty years after his death. The history of visual representations of posthumous miracles has an interesting postscript. One type of posthumous miracle that made its debut in the Upper Church—the raising of someone from the dead—does continue to appear occasionally in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, instead of using the prototype in the Upper Church of a woman being raised so her confession could be heard, artists selected other stories. It is important to know that there were no such miracles in I Celano. However, III Celano includes several stories of people raised from the dead through the intercession of Francis, and these are included in the Legenda Maior. There are two examples of this type of miracle in the right transept of the Lower Church in Assisi, painted ca. 1315–1320.65 Both are stories found in the Legenda Maior, one of a boy who jumped out of a

64 In the Upper Church fresco of the authentication of the stigmata, where the knight Jerome puts his hand in the side wound, there is a prominent layman in the lower left corner with his back to the viewer who appears to be turning away, probably in denial. The Rieti artist transferred that figure to the story of the release of Peter the heretic. While the authenticity of the stigmata was a central concern in Assisi because there were still those who did not believe in them, heresy was the central concern in Rieti. This is discussed in detail in Cook, “Rieti.” 65 Pasquale Magro, La Basilica Sepolcrale di San Francesco in Assisi (Assisi: Casa Editrice Francescana, 1991): 142.

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window in Rome and the other, in two scenes, of the resuscitation of a young man from Suessa who had died when his house collapsed.66 The former story, borrowed no doubt from the fresco in the Lower Church in Assisi, is depicted in one of the Taddeo Gaddi panels now in the Accademia in Florence.67 Even at the end of the fifteenth century, Domenico Ghirlandaio included the raising of the boy who jumped out of the window in his fresco cycle of the life of Francis for the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinità in Florence, setting the scene in front of the church of Santa Trinità.68 Francis the healer of the sick and crippled and possessed was a prominent part of the cult of the saint immediately after his canonization. Indeed, if the visual evidence is reliable, this is how Francis was chiefly known to lay audiences. However, the uniqueness of his stigmata and the “perfect” conformity of his life to the life of Christ became the primary ways that the Friars Minor presented their founder to the public beginning in the last part of the thirteenth century. There was a period in which miracles involving the power of the stigmata and certain ecclesial issues made an appearance, but they were important only for a brief time. Within a century of Francis’ death, the only sort of posthumous miracle that played a role in narrative paintings of the Franciscan legend was the raising of dead children and youth.69 Interestingly, the earliest miracles were to show Francis’ similarity to Christ since both Christ and Francis cured cripples and lepers and exorcised demons. And that was precisely the point of the stories of Francis raising a child from the dead a century later.

66

Legenda Maior II,II,4 & 6. Bonaventure’s accounts are based on III Cel 42 and

45. 67

August Rave, Christiformitas: Studien zur franziskanischen Ikonografie des Florentiner Trecento am Beispiel des ehemaligen Sakristeischrankzyklus von Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce (Worms: Werner’sche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1984): 180–184. 68 For a brief description plus good photographs, see Emma Micheletti, Domenico Ghirlandaio (Florence: Scala, 1990): 27–31. 69 The story of Francis’ apparition to Gregory IX in the late fourteenth-century altar in San Francesco, Bologna, is the one exception; and it is there probably because it was also included in the earlier frescoes in the chapterhouse by Francesco da Rimini.

COOPERATION AND CONFLICT: STAINED GLASS IN THE BARDI CHAPELS OF SANTA CROCE Nancy M. Thompson

When the Franciscan friars of Santa Croce in Florence began rebuilding their church in the late thirteenth century, they included a program of stained glass windows in the new basilica. The Santa Croce friars were most likely following the model of the mother Franciscan church in Assisi, where narrative stained glass appeared in Italy for the first time in the mid-thirteenth century.1 While the Santa Croce friars likely planned and paid for the glass that remains in the high altar chapel from the 1320s, the private patrons of Santa Croce financed the windows in the transept chapels of the church (see plan, Fig. 1). In fact, soon after the transept was completed in 1310, private Florentine citizens, spurred on by the promise of papal indulgences, began to purchase entire chapels and finance their decoration with stained glass, fresco and panel paintings.2 While only about half

1

While there was certainly glass production in Italy before the mid thirteenth century, the Assisi windows are probably the earliest example of large-scale, narrative stained glass in the Italian peninsula. For an overview of glass production in medieval Italy, see Daniela Stiaffani, Il vetro nel medioevo (Rome, 1999). In 1952, Hans Wentzel first made detailed connections between the apse glass in Assisi and German glazing of the thirteenth century. See Hans Wentzel, ‘Die ältesten Farbfenster in der Oberkirche von S. Francesco zu Assisi und die deutsche Glasmalerei des XIII. Jahrhunderts,’ Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch XIV (1952), 45–72. Frank Martin makes further more detailed connections in his article, ‘Le vetrate gotiche di San Francesco in Assisi. Contribuiti renani alla decorazione iniziale della Chiesa Superiore,’ in Il gotico europeo in Italia, ed. Valentino Pace and Martina Bagnoli (Naples, 1994), pp. 181–193, esp. page 182. See also Martin’s published dissertation, Die Apsesverglasung der Oberkirche von S. Francesco in Assisi: Ihre Entstehung und Stellung innerhalb der Oberkirchenausstattung (Worms, 1993) and his book, co-authored with P. Gerhard Ruf, Die Glasmalereien von San Francesco in Assisi: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Gattung in Italien (Regensburg, 1997). For an overview of the stained glass in the basilica of San Francesco, see Giuseppe Marchini Le vetrate dell’Umbria, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Italia I (Rome, 1973). 2 See Robert Davidsohn, Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz 4 (Berlin, 1908), p. 487; Walter and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz I (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1940), pp. 497–99; and Filippo Moisè, Santa Croce di Firenze: illustrazione storico-artistica con note copiosi documenti inediti (Florence, 1845), pp. 68–70, for discussions of the early donations to the church. Saturnino Mencherini in Santa Croce di Firenze: Memorie e documenti

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of the fourteenth-century windows survive, each of the transept chapels was probably equipped with a stained glass window by its original patron. The various branches of the Bardi family were great patrons of the friars; they purchased the chapel dedicated to St Francis just to the right of the high altar; and they built a new, larger chapel at the end of the left transept dedicated to Louis of Toulouse (1274–1297), a Franciscan saint important to the friars and to the Bardi themselves.3 This essay explores the ways in which the stained glass windows functioned within the decorative programs of these two Bardi chapels. Through their depiction of Franciscan and Angevin saints, Bardi coats-of-arms and papal figures, the windows encapsulate the complex relationships between the most important political and religious powers in early fourteenth-century Italy. The Bardi chapel dedicated to St Francis was founded by Ridolfo de’ Bardi sometime around 1310, the year his father died and left him with a large inheritance and in charge of the Bardi company.4 The general scholarly consensus on the date of the chapel decoration, based on the place of the frescoes in Giotto’s stylistic development and on the fact that Louis of Toulouse, canonized in 1317, appears on the chapel wall and in the stained glass window above the chapel, places the campaign anywhere from 1317 into the mid 1320s.5 Giotto depicted seven scenes from the life of St Francis in

(Florence, 1929), pp. 61–64 transcribes the bull of Matthew of Aquasparta that grants the indulgences. Moisè, p. 468, also transcribes a section of this bull. 3 Although both chapels were commissioned by the Bardi, the St Francis chapel was commissioned by Ridolfo de’ Bardi and the St Louis chapel by Gualterotto de’ Bardi, two different branches of the family. There is extensive literature on the Bardi and their patronage. For the history and genealogy of the family, see Luigi Passerini, “Genealogia e storia della famiglia dei Bardi” (Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS Passerini 45). For Bardi patronage see Irene Hueck, “Stifter und Patronatsrecht: Dokumente zu zwei Kapellen der Bardi,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Instituts in Florenz 20 (1976), 263–70; Rona Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict: Giotto’s Bardi Chapel (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1988); Jane C. Long, “Bardi Patronage at Santa Croce in Florence, c. 1320–1343” (Dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1988), pp. 80–109; and Ena Giurescu, “Trecento Family Chapels in Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce: Architecture, Patronage, and Competition” (Dissertation, New York University, 1997), pp. 46–48, 64–68 and 123–29. 4 Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict, p. 57. 5 William Cook, in his essay in the Cambridge Companion to Giotto, eds. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona (Cambridge, 2003), gives the date of c.1325 and notes the great variety of dates assigned to the Bardi cycle. Bruce Cole, Giotto and Florentine Painting 1280–1375 (New York, 1976), pp. 118–19, dates the Bardi chapel to the mid 1320s. Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict, pp. 57–59, argues instead that Giotto painted the Bardi

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the chapel program and images of four Franciscan saints on the window wall.6 As Ena Giurescu notes in her dissertation on chapel patronage in the Trecento, the privilege of owning such a prominent chapel dedicated to the founder of the order and located beside the high altar chapel must have come with the rights over the wall above the chapel, where Giotto depicted the Stigmatization of Francis (Fig. 2).7 The Stigmatization is surmounted by the stained glass window depicting St Francis, St Anthony of Padua and St Louis of Toulouse, each under the hand of a blessing pontiff, with the Bardi coat-of-arms in a roundel at the top (Figs. 3 and 4). The window was designed and carried out by Giovanni di Bonino, a painter and stained glass artist contemporary with Giotto; the Bardi coat-of-arms indicates that it was part of the original program in the chapel below and therefore dates to c. 1317 to 1325.8 Because the chapel fresco chapel between 1310 and 1316, after the painter had seen the fresco cycle of Francis’ life in Assisi and after Ridolfo came into his money. See also Julian Gardner, “The Early Decoration of Santa Croce in Florence,” Burlington Magazine 113 (1971), 391–92; Hayden Maginnis, Painting in the Age of Giotto: A Historical Reevaluation (University Park, PA, 1997), pp. 92–94; and Creighton Gilbert, “L’ordine cronologico degli affreschi Bardi e Peruzzi,” Bollettino d’arte 53 (1968), 92–97. 6 The seven episodes are Francis’ renunciation of his father’s bourgeois ways and his embrace by the church, the approval of the Franciscan rule by Innocent III, Francis’ trial by fire in front of the Sultan of Egypt, the apparition of Francis to a friar while Anthony of Padua preached at Arles, the reception of the stigmata at La Verna, Francis’ death and his soul’s ascent, and the visions that friar Augustine and Bishop Guido had of the departed Francis. Only three of the figures on the window wall, Elizabeth of Hungary, Francis and Louis of Toulouse are extant. The fourth may have been Louis IX of France, as Bianchi hypothesized when he restored the chapel in the nineteenth century. See Nina Olsson, “Gaetano Bianchi: Restauratore e decoratore ‘Giottesco’,” Antichità viva 36 (1997), 44–55. 7 Giurescu, “Trecento Family Chapels,” pp. 69–70. 8 Giuseppe Marchini attributes the design of this window to the Master of Figline, a follower of Giotto, in his chapters on stained glass in Il Primo Rinascimento in Santa Croce (Florence, 1968), pp. 55–78, and in Complesso monumentale di Sta. Croce, eds. Umberto Baldini and Bruno Nardini (Florence, 1983), pp. 307–17. Marchini believes that the Master of Figline is Giovanni di Bonino, the glazier of the Cathedral of Orvieto who also worked extensively in Assisi. See Marchini, “Il Giottesco Giovanni di Bonino,” in Giotto e Il suo tempo (Rome, 1967), pp. 67–77. I agree with Giuseppe Marchini’s attribution of the window to Giovanni di Bonino. Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting 3/4 (Florence, 1984), pp. 327–28, date the window to soon after 1317, the date of Louis of Toulouse’s canonization. This is consistent with the dating of 1317–1325 I propose here. The window currently inside the Bardi chapel was originally located in the Velluti chapel dedicated to the Angels at the end of the right transept. It was moved into the Bardi chapel after World War II. See my dissertation, “The FourteenthCentury Stained Glass of Santa Croce in Florence,” (Indiana University, Bloomington, 1999), pp. 241–43.

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program closely follows the narrative of Francis’ life written by Bonaventure, the Franciscans likely dictated the overall programs of the chapel decoration. However, the Bardi included their coatof-arms in the window (and in other parts of the chapel) in order to fulfill what Giurescu has called the patron’s “socio-cultural needs.”9 Giotto’s fresco cycle was apparently informed by his presence in the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, where 28 scenes from the life of Francis are depicted on the walls of the Upper Church.10 All seven of the Santa Croce scenes are also in the Assisi cycle, and there are formal similarities between the Assisi and Santa Croce images of the same narratives. For example, in both the Assisi and Santa Croce scenes of the Approval of the Franciscan Rule, Francis kneels before the pope, and Innocent III blesses a scroll as Francis’ followers and the papal retinue observe (Figs. 5 and 6). The Santa Croce composition is reversed, and is also simpler than the Assisi image in its architectural setting; however, the iconography and compositions are similar enough to suggest that the Santa Croce image was informed by its counterpart in Assisi.11 In the Renunciation of Worldly Goods in the Bardi chapel (Fig. 7), Giotto also used compositional elements found in the corresponding Assisi fresco. While Giotto simplified the architectural composition in the Assisi fresco, he followed the figural composition. In both images, members of the group behind Francis restrain the hulking figure of his father, while Bishop Guido of Assisi embraces the nude Francis who gestures upward with his left hand.12 9 Giurescu, “Trecento Family Chapels,” 260–63. Giurescu maintains that while the patron of a chapel had relatively little say in the overall iconography of a chapel, the patron could display his ownership in other ways, most notably the inclusion of coats-of-arms in glass, paint and stone. 10 Giotto apparently had worked in Assisi before 1309; a document dated January 4, 1309 attests that a loan was made to Giotto and an artist in Assisi for a joint project. See Vincenzo Martinelli, “Un documento per Giotto ad Assisi,” Storia dell’arte 19 (1973), 193–208. 11 The relationship between the Assisi frescoes and Giotto’s Bardi chapel frescoes is a matter of huge debate. Many scholars believe that the Assisi frescoes are an early work by Giotto, making the Bardi frescoes a later example of Giotto’s treatment of the life of Francis. The literature on this question is extensive. In his book The Basilica of St Francis in Assisi (Florence, 1996), pp. 62–67, Elvio Lunghi argues through formal analysis that Giotto created the Assisi frescoes in the late thirteenth century. Lunghi also provides a bibliography of the recent literature on the subject. For background on the question, see also James Stubblebine, ed., Giotto: the Arena Chapel Frescoes (New York and London, 1969). 12 For an illustration of the Assisi Renunciation, see Lunghi, The Basilica of St Francis, p. 70.


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Just as Giotto looked to past examples of the narrative of Francis’ life for compositional inspiration, so Giovanni di Bonino looked to the tradition of Italian painting and stained glass to compose his window. Single, standing saints framed by tabernacles are familiar elements in Italian fourteenth-century paintings and stained glass windows, and many examples can be found in Santa Croce itself. The four saints painted in fresco on either side of the window inside the Bardi chapel stand in trefoiled arches comparable to those in the window above. In the St Martin chapel in the Lower Church in Assisi, Simone Martini painted rows of saints framed within similar trilobed arches.13 The trilobed tabernacle composition is also common in stained glass windows in Italy, and the roots of the composition are found in French medieval stained glass.14 The Tolosini window, located on the other side of the high altar from the Bardi St Francis window, consists of six figures couched in trilobed arches identical to those framing the Bardi saints and popes (Fig. 2). This type of composition can also be found in the Glorification of St Francis window in the Upper Church in Assisi, the first window on the left as one enters the basilica, in which Christ, the Virgin and six angels stand under tabernacles with trilobed arches.15 The iconography of Giotto’s frescoes is based on textual sources. According to Goffen, Giotto’s cycle was intended to follow Bonaventure’s Legenda Minor: the frescoes refer to episodes from six of the seven chapters of the Legenda, which were read for “the office during the octave of the feast of Saint Francis.”16 Although the Bardi frescoes were chosen to accompany the liturgy based on the Legenda

13 For an illustration of these figures, see Lunghi, The Basilica of St Francis, pp. 160–63. 14 See Nancy Thompson, “The Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass of Santa Croce in Florence,” (Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1999), pp. 52–56. The Bardi and Tolosini windows are close in style to the hemicycle windows of St Père in Chartres. See Meredith Lillich, The Stained Glass of St Père of Chartres (Middletown, CT, 1978), pp. 46–53. 15 Marchini, Le vetrate dell’Umbria, pp. 84–87. This window is Marchini’s number XIII. 16 Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict, pp. 63–64. For Bonaventure’s Legenda Minor, see Bonaventure, Opera Omnia 8, Opuscula varia ad theologiam mysticam et ad res Ordinis Fratrum Minorum spectantia (Quaracchi, 1898), pp. 565–79. For a new translation of the Legenda Minor, see Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2 (New York, 2000), pp. 684–730 (hereafter referred to as Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2). Goffen notes that there is no narrative from chapter five of the Legenda Minor, “The Obedience of Creatures and the Divine Condescendence,” represented in the Bardi frescoes.

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Minor, much of the detail in the individual scenes was adapted from Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, commissioned by the order in 1260.17 In the Bardi Approval of the Franciscan Rule (Fig. 6), for example, Francis kneels, as Bonaventure describes “with his band of simple men before the presence of the Apostolic See.”18 In the image, Innocent III blesses and orally approves the rule Francis has written for himself and his twelve followers grouped behind him.19 Innocent III is flanked by two cardinals, one of whom is most likely John of St Paul, the Bishop of Sabina, who convinced Innocent that he should not hesitate to bless Francis’ way of life, “for if anyone says that there is something novel or irrational or impossible to observe this man’s desire to live according to the perfection of the Gospel, he would be guilty of blasphemy against Christ, the author of the Gospel.”20 The Bardi St Francis window is apparently not based on the writings of Bonaventure or other textual sources. However, the pairing of saints and blessing popes in the stained glass window is reminiscent of Innocent III blessing Francis in the fresco of the Approval of the Franciscan Rule (Fig. 6). The Approval of the Rule highlights Francis’ allegiance to the papacy, something Francis outlines clearly in his 1223 version of the Rule that was officially approved by Honorius III. In the opening paragraph Francis states, “The Rule and Life of the Lesser Brothers is this: to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without anything of one’s own, and in chastity. Brother Francis promises obedience and reverence to our Lord Pope Honorius and his successors canonically elected and to the Roman Church.”21 While the images in Giotto’s cycle

17 The text was approved in 1263, and in 1266 it officially replaced the earlier lives of the saint written by Thomas of Celano upon which early cycles of St Francis were based. 18 Bonaventure, Legenda Sancti Francisci 3.8, Quaracchi, Opera Omnia 8, p. 511. (This text is hereafter referred to as the Legenda Maior.) For an English translation, see Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2, p. 547. 19 Bonaventure changed the number of Francis’ early companions from the eleven described by Celano to a symbolic twelve in the Legenda Maior, 3.7, Quaracchi, Opera Omnia 8, p. 511. “Illis quoque diebus quator sibi adhaerentibus viris honestis, ad duodenarium numerum excreverunt.” For the earlier account, see Thomas of Celano, Vita Prima S. Francisci Assisiensis, Analecta Franciscana 10 (1926), 35–36, and Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1 (New York, 1999), pp. 180–297 (hereafter referred to as Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1). 20 Bonaventure, Legenda Maior, 3.9, Quaracchi, Opera Omnia 8, p. 512. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 2. 21 Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1, p. 100. The introduction to the Rule of


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encompass many other important Franciscan ideas, such as Francis as alter Christus, the window above the chapel speaks directly to the Franciscan relationship with the mother church.22 In the window, Francis, Anthony of Padua and Louis of Toulouse, the three male Franciscans who had been canonized when the window was put in place, stand under the hands of three blessing pontiffs (Figs. 3 and 4).23 It is difficult to say exactly which popes are represented in the window, but the question is almost irrelevant: they are iconic figures, symbolic of the power of the church and the office of the pope, who give their blessings to the most important members of the order. This image, just to the right of the high altar, was also quite visible in the church: it could have been seen above the rood screen that separated the choir from the lay area of the church, and, because of the brightness of the medium, it could be read from a much greater distance than the frescoes below.24 While the fresco cycle gives narrative evidence of Franciscan obedience to Rome in a relatively secluded and private space, the window declares this obedience in a direct and iconic manner. What does this image of popes and Franciscans suggest about the relationship between the Order and the papacy at this time? The window declares the relatively recent sanctity of these three Franciscans; Francis was canonized in 1228, Anthony in 1232 and Louis in 1317.

1221, a revision of the 1209 rule that is no longer extant, is similar to this passage. It reads, “This is the life of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that Brother Francis petitioned the Lord Pope to grant and confirm for him; and he did and confirm it for him and his brothers present and to come. Brother Francis—and whoever is head of this religion—promises obedience and reverence to the Lord Pope Innocent and his successors.” Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1, 63. 22 Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict, p. 67. According to Goffen, p. 60, the central theme of the chapel program is the role of Francis as the alter Christus. William Cook, in his essay in the Cambridge Companion to Giotto (see note 5 above), describes a great number of important themes addressed in the frescoes. In general, the cycle establishes the most salient moments in Francis’ spiritual journey, according to his patrons at Santa Croce, and the many layers of the mission of the Franciscan order. 23 Two female Franciscans had also been canonized at this point, Elizabeth of Hungary (Third Order) in 1235 and Clare of Assisi in 1255. 24 For a reconstruction of the rood screen, see Marcia Hall, “The Tramezzo in Santa Croce, Florence Reconstructed,” Art Bulletin 56 (1974), 325–41, and Renovation and Counter Reformation: Vasari and Duke Cosimo in Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce 1565–1577 (Oxford, 1979). See also the article by Jacqueline Jung “Beyond the Barrier: The Unifying Role of the Choir Screen in Gothic Churches,” Art Bulletin 82 (2000), 622–57 for a more general discussion of the rood screen in Gothic architecture.

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Because the window was put in place between 1317 and the mid 1320s (as part of Giotto’s decoration of the chapel below), it also celebrated Louis’ canonization by John XXII. Before Louis’ canonization, Francis appeared with Anthony in many altarpieces and mosaics; in the Bardi window, Louis ceremoniously joins the ranks of Franciscan male saints.25 Louis was also depicted in the polyptych for the high altar of Santa Croce painted by Ugolino da Siena in the 1320s. In the central register of the polyptych, Ugolino included Francis, Anthony and Louis along with Peter, Paul and John the Baptist in the panels flanking the Virgin and Child.26 This type of altarpiece with multiple saints framing a central panel was quite popular in Franciscan and Dominican houses in the early 1300s, and the flowering of the cult of Louis of Toulouse corresponds with the development of the polyptych.27 The iconography of the Bardi window, on the other hand, is apparently quite innovative. I have not found another painting or stained glass window from this period in northern Italy that pairs Franciscan saints with popes in such a way. In fact, a few years before the window was put in place, a great controversy between the papacy and the Order had come to a head. 25 The book by William R. Cook, Images of St Francis of Assisi (Florence, 1999), contains several paintings that pair Francis and Anthony. They appear, for example, at the feet of the crucified Christ in a Perugian painted cross from c. 1290 (Cook, pp. 160–61), on the outer shutters of a polyptych from c. 1275 from Lucca or Spoleto (Cook, p. 176) and in Torriti’s apse mosaic in the Lateran in Rome from 1291 (The mosaic was reconstructed after a fire in the nineteenth century. See Cook pp. 184–86). 26 The Santa Croce altarpiece was removed when Vasari renovated the church in 1569 to make way for his new ciborium, and the polyptych was later taken apart. For more on the original state of the altarpiece, its iconography and detailed technical analyses, see Gertrude Coor-Achenbach, “Contributions to the Study of Ugolino di Nerio’s Art: The composition and iconography of Ugolino’s high altarpiece for Santa Croce,” Art Bulletin XXXVII/3 (1955), 153–65; Henri Loyrette, “Une source pour la Reconstruction du Polyptyque d’Ugolino da Siena à Santa Croce,” Paragone 343 (1978), 15–23; and Norman E. Muller, “Reflections on Ugolino di Nerio’s Santa Croce Polyptych,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 57 (1994), 45–74. 27 Cannon argues that the Dominicans were responsible for popularizing the polyptych among mendicant orders, and that Ugolino’s polyptych for Santa Maria Novella predated the one he created for Santa Croce. See Joanna Cannon, “The Creation, Meaning and Audience of the Early Sienese Polyptych: Evidence from the Friars,” in Italian Altarpieces 1250–1550: Function and Design, eds. Eve Borsook and Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi (Oxford, 1994), 41–62, and “Simone Martini, the Dominicans and the Early Sienese Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982), 69–93. See Julian Gardner, “The Iconography of Louis of Toulouse,” in I francescani nel Trecento (Perugia, 1988), pp. 172–73 for a brief discussion of Louis’ place in the high altar polyptych.


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In his recent book, David Burr discusses the roots of this controversy in his larger study of the genesis and proliferation of the spiritual Franciscans, several groups of Franciscans who objected to the wealth that their order had continued to accumulate due to a series of papal bulls decreed in the decades following Francis’ death in 1226.28 One such bull, Quo elongati, issued in 1230 by Gregory IX, allowed the Franciscans to use property whose legal ownership resided with the papacy.29 This concept, the usus pauper, was not greatly troubling in itself to the spirituals; however, they maintained that the use of expensive property and the construction of lavish churches like Santa Croce and the Basilica in Assisi contradicted Francis’ original ideas concerning apostolic poverty. In the Rule of 1221, Francis had demanded explicitly that the friars own no property, accept no money and live according to the ideals of apostolic poverty.30 The majority of the order, the Conventual Franciscans, held that large churches as well as books and church embellishments were necessary to carry out the Order’s mission to preach. According to Burr, John XXII was instrumental in making the Spirituals into heretics: in the 1310s the pope had become increasingly disturbed by the pervasiveness of the Spirituals’ message and of their continued disobedience of papal mandates.31 In 1317, John XXII ordered that these radical friars either obey their superiors or face the consequences. John’s bull reads: “Poverty is great, but unity is greater; obedience is the greatest good of all if it is preserved intact.”32 When a group of rigorists 28

David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans (University Park, PA, 2001). John Moorman, The History of the Franciscan Order: From Its Origins to the Year 1517 (1968; rept. Chicago, 1988), p. 90. See also Decima Douie, The Nature and the Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli (Manchester, 1932), p. 2. Quo elongati also declared that Francis’ Testament, in which Francis stated that the Rule could not be interpreted, was non-binding. Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, p. 15, writes that Quo elongati was not an attempt to quell the Spiritual Franciscans because at this time, 1230, there was not such a movement in any concrete sense. Instead, according to Burr, Gregory was attempting to find a way to help the rapidly expanding order grow in a manageable way. 30 See Saint Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1, pp. 63–86. The Rule of 1223 (Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1, pp. 99–106), which was approved by Honorius III with an official, papal seal, restates the Franciscan dedication to apostolic poverty but in a simpler form. In general, the 1223 Rule is an abridgement of the 1221 Rule, which was never in effect. 31 Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 191–212, documents John XXII’s “Censure and Condemnation” (the title of the chapter) of the Spirituals as heretics. 32 David Burr, Olivi and Franciscan Poverty: the Origins of the Usus Pauper Controversy (Philadelphia, 1989), p. ix, quotes this bull and discusses its effects on the order. 29

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in southern France was asked to concede to papal authority, four of these men refused. In 1318, by the orders of Pope John XXII, they were burned at the stake in the marketplace of Marseilles. The Bardi St Francis window pointedly declares the obedience of the Conventuals at Santa Croce to the mother church. The position of Anthony of Padua in the window (Figs. 3 and 4) just below Francis highlights the importance the friars at Santa Croce placed on the “active Conventual life of preaching and teaching.” 33 Francis himself gave Anthony permission to continue his mission through teaching and preaching. In a letter dated c. 1223–24, Francis states that, “it is agreeable to me that you should teach the friars theology, so long as they do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotedness over this study, as it is contained in the Rule.”34 Anthony was a lector in philosophy at Bologna, Montpellier and Toulouse, and in the Bardi window he holds a book that is symbolic of his active life as a rhetorician and preacher. This active life is blessed by the figure of a pope, who might in this case represent Gregory IX, the pope who canonized Anthony and issued Quo elongati, thereby allowing the Franciscans to accumulate property so that they could learn and preach on Anthony’s model. In the bottom register of the window, Louis of Toulouse stands under the blessing hand of a pope with his Franciscan habit peeking from beneath his bishop’s garb, a feature that would become common in Louis’ iconography (Fig. 4).35 Louis was born in 1274,

33

Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict (see above, n. 3), p. 71. The original text reads, “Placet mihi, quod sacram theologiam leges fratribus, dummodo propter huismodi studium sanctae orationis et devotionis spiritum non extinguant, sicut in regula continetur.” The translation can be found in Saint Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1, p. 107, and the original text in Analecta Franciscana 3, Chronica XXIV Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minoru, (Quaracchi, 1897), p. 132. Scholars have doubted the authenticity of the text, but most agree that Francis did write Anthony a letter that gave him permission to preach. See Francis of Assisi: Early Documents 1, p. 107, for brief discussions of the letter and the literature that treats the issue. 35 Simone Martini, in his 1317 image of Louis of Toulouse crowning his brother Robert, also depicts Louis’ simple Franciscan habit and knotted rope belt underneath a lavish bishop’s robe. See Julian Gardner, “Saint Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone Martini,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 39 (1976), 12–13 and Adrian Hoch, “The Franciscan Provenance of Simone Martini’s Angevin St Louis in Naples,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 58 (1995), 22–34. For broader studies of images of Louis, see Beda Kleinschmidt, “St Ludwig von Toulouse in der Kunst,” Archivum Francescanum Historicum (1909), 197–215 and Emile Berteaux, “Les saints Louis dans l’art italien,” Revue des deux mondes 158 (1900), 616–44. In her book, S. Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonisation in the Fourteenth Century (Manchester, 34


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the second son of Charles II of Anjou. After his older brother died, leaving Louis the next in line for succession, Louis gave up his right to the throne; and his younger brother Robert succeeded him. In 1296 Louis joined the Franciscan order in a secret ceremony with the approval of Boniface VIII.36 There was an attempt to keep the ceremony secret from Louis’ father King Charles, who would not have wished such a humble life for his royal son. Indeed, due to his father’s request, Louis was appointed as the Bishop of Toulouse; however, Louis restated his Franciscan vows publicly in 1297 and wore his brown habit underneath his vestments until he died later that year. From the time of his death in 1297, Louis’ father Charles and his brother Robert lobbied intensely for his canonization.37 The delay in his canonization until 1317 was likely due to objections from the powerful Conventuals in the order because of Louis’ association with Peter John Olivi, a friar born in southern France in 1248. Olivi became a Franciscan at Béziers at the age of twelve, was educated in Paris and wrote several works that were highly critical of the wealth of his order.38 Olivi maintained that the friars must accept the concept of usus pauper; however, Olivi emphasized that the use of expensive property, even if it was owned by the papacy, was contrary to the vow of poverty.39 While Olivi was able to escape punishment by the papacy and the Order, many of his followers in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries were persecuted, tortured and even killed for their “radical” views on Franciscan poverty.40 1929), pp. 212–32, Margaret R. Toynbee discusses images related to the cult of St Louis. Diane F. Zervas discusses Donatello’s sculpture of St Louis of Toulouse and the importance of the saint to Florentine society in The Parte Guelfa, Brunelleschi and Donatello (Villa i Tatti: The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies) 8 (Locust Valley, NY, 1987). 36 Boniface VIII could be the pope who blesses Louis in the window. For a discussion of Louis’ entry into the Franciscan order, see Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse, pp. 78–87. 37 Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse, pp. 146–64. In these pages, Toynbee discusses the process of the canonization of St Louis. 38 Moorman, History of the Franciscan Order, p. 189. 39 Olivi’s arguments concerning Franciscan poverty are summed up well by Burr, Olivi and Franciscan Poverty, pp. 57–66. 40 Burr, Olivi and Franciscan Poverty, pp. 88–105, discusses Olivi’s 1283 censure by the minister general. Moorman, History of the Franciscan Order, pp. 193–97, discusses Olivi’s trials and the subsequent persecution of his followers. Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 179–212, discusses many incidents involving the censure of Olivi’s followers and other spirituals.

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While Louis of Toulouse was in captivity in Aragon, where he was sent in 1288 as a hostage for his father Charles who had lost a naval battle, he came under the influence of Franciscan friars who were dedicated to the mission of Franciscan poverty. Louis and his two brothers wrote to Olivi and asked him to come and visit them in captivity.41 Olivi wrote back in 1295 and gave myriad reasons why he could not visit the friars, including fears about his own personal safety.42 This invitation is important to our understanding of Louis’ connections with the Spiritual Franciscans. While he did not actively associate with any of the Spiritual groups within the order, the invitation itself indicates that Louis was at least interested in the kind of Franciscanism Olivi espoused. Louis’ personal asceticism also suggests that he did have some sympathy with the spiritual cause. Perhaps because of his powerful, royal family that was connected politically and financially to the papacy, Louis did not feel it prudent to associate actively with the spiritual movements. Louis was canonized in 1317 in the midst of the controversy between the Spiritual Franciscans and John XXII described above. Given Louis’ associations with the Spirituals and with Olivi, it is not surprising that the Pope was hesitant to canonize Louis. In the Bull of Canonization approved by John XXII in 1317, Louis’ charity and piety are emphasized; however, the saint’s dedication to apostolic poverty is not.43 The same could be said of the depiction of Louis in the Bardi St Francis window: Louis’ cope glistens with the fleursde-lys, a symbol of the Capetian and Angevins dynasties, while his miter and crosier figure prominently in the image. His habit is also shown, but this version of Louis is rather clean and official: there is no indication of the asceticism that Louis espoused. Instead, the Conventuals of Santa Croce have stressed Louis’ royal connections and his place within the Church hierarchy. This image of Louis corresponds in many ways with Simone Martini’s 1317 altarpiece of

41 Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, p. 74. Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse, pp. 55–72, discusses Louis’ captivity in Aragon where he was educated by Franciscan friars, including Ponzius Carbonelli, Peter of Falgar, and Richard of Middleton. 42 Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, p. 74. 43 In 1323 John XXII went so far as to declare that it was heretical to believe in the doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles. See Duncan Nimmo, Reform and Division in the Franciscan Order 1226–1538 (Rome, 1987), p. 240. Nimmo also discusses John’s persecution of the Fraticelli, the later Spiritual sects of the Franciscans.


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Louis crowning his brother Robert. In the Naples altarpiece, Louis’ saintly visage is encased in royal robes decorated with heraldry; he wears the symbols of the Angevin-Capetian line, the family of his father and his great uncle St Louis IX, in addition to those of the Kingdom of Hungary, which he inherited from his mother Mary of Hungary, and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.44 The friars of Santa Croce kept within the iconographic tradition begun by Simone only a few years before; the Louis in the Bardi window is a royal bishop saint, an image that also corresponds with the official saint described in the bull of canonization.45 The Louis in the Bardi window, displayed so prominently in the church, is the “Conventual Louis,” blessed by the papacy and appropriately placed in the Conventual church of Santa Croce. For friars who may have been sympathetic to the ideas of the Spirituals, this window was a potent reminder of the allegiance of Santa Croce to the papacy in the controversy with the Spirituals. In 1287, when the rebuilding of Santa Croce was in the planning stage, the minister general of the Franciscans, Matthew of Aquasparta, sent Olivi to Florence to be a lector to the friars of Santa Croce. While he remained there for only two years, his presence was inspiring for the Spiritual party of Franciscans at Santa Croce. One such friar, Ubertino da Casale, who had come to Santa Croce in 1284, was greatly influenced by Olivi’s call for apostolic poverty.46 Significantly, Ubertino was opposed to the new rebuilding of the church

44 See Andrew Martindale, Simone Martini (Oxford, 1988), pp. 18 and 192–94 on the heraldry in Simone’s altarpiece. Adrian Hoch, “The Franciscan Provenance,” pp. 25–26, writes that Robert’s dalmatic shows only the arms of the Angevins and the Kingdom of Jerusalem because Charles II intended the Kingdom of Hungary for Charles Robert, the son of Louis and Robert’s deceased older brother. 45 While there were likely images of Louis that pre-date Simone’s altarpiece, Julian Gardner writes that, “There is a certain appropriateness in the fact the iconography of Saint Louis of Toulouse may be said to begin with Simone Martini.” Gardner, “The Cult of a Fourteenth-Century Saint,” p. 169. Note that in the Bardi St Louis window Louis does not wear the symbols of the Hungarian throne or of the Kingdom of Jerusalem that also adorn him in Simone’s altarpiece. This is due to the fact that the Naples altarpiece was intended specifically to display the legitimacy of Robert in taking the throne and the fact that Robert did not inherit the Hungarian throne. 46 Douie, Nature and Effect, pp. 120–52, discusses Ubertino’s life and writings. Ubertino’s writings are discussed in detail by G.L. Potestà, Storia ed escatologia in Ubertino da Casale (Milan, 1980). See also Malcolm Lambert, Franciscan Poverty (1961; rpt. St Bonaventure, NY, 1998) and Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 261–77.

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of Santa Croce. He “denounced the luxurious new building as a sign of the Anti-Christ and blamed the two guardians of the convent, Giovanni degli Agli and friar Caponsacchi.”47 Ubertino stood on solid ground: the elaborate use of images in stone, paint and glass was contrary to Franciscan regulations concerning church decoration. According to the constitutions issued by St Bonaventure at the 1260 Chapter meeting in Narbonne, adornment in glass and stone vaulting in Franciscan churches was only permissible behind the high altar of the church.48 While Santa Croce’s wooden roof is in keeping with the Chapter constitutions, the extensive use of stained glass throughout the transept is a flagrant violation.49 Neither Ubertino’s protests nor the Narbonne statutes stopped the construction of the church, and Ubertino and many of his followers left Santa Croce in 1289. Most likely friars who were sympathetic to Ubertino’s views remained at the friary, but their views were evidently suppressed, and the building of the new church proceeded unimpeded.50 For Franciscan Spirituals, the depiction of Francis, Anthony and in particular Louis of Toulouse next to symbols of papal authority did not represent the cooperation between the two institutions, but rather the violent suppression of the Spirituals’ cause. John XXII proceeded with the canonization of Louis of Toulouse in part to maintain advantageous political relations with the Angevins, who had pursued Louis’ canonization fervently since his death.51 The alliance between the Papacy and the house of Anjou was by this time quite strong. In the thirteenth century, the Angevins had been

47

Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict, p. 91 n. 49. Michael Bihl, “Statuta Generalia Ordinis edita in Capitulis Generalibus Celebratis Narbonae an. 1260, Assisii an. 1279 atque Paris an. 1292,” Archivum Francescanum Historicum 34 (1941), 48. The text reads, “Item fenestrae vitreae historiatae vel picturatae de cetero nusquam fiant, excepto quod in principali vitrea post maius altare chori, . . .” For a discussion of Bonaventure and the statutes of 1260, see Rosalind B. Brooke, Early Franciscan Government: Elias to Bonaventure (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 247–85. 49 The Mother basilica at Assisi also violated these regulations. The glass in the apse (the oldest glass in the basilica and in Italy) was probably carried out between 1253 and 1260 before the Chapter meeting at Narbonne. The glazing of the church was most likely continued after St Bonaventure’s death in 1274. See Marchini, Le vetrate dell’Umbria (see above, n. 1). 50 Ubertino continued to have problems with the ministers of the order and the papacy throughout his life and eventually left the Franciscans to become a Benedictine monk. See Lambert, Franciscan Poverty, pp. 184 and 197–206, Douie, The Nature and Effect, pp. 128–29 and Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans, pp. 261–77. 51 Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict, pp. 81–83. 48


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instrumental in helping the Papacy regain lands that had been lost to imperial forces.52 The Florentine papal supporters, or the Florentine Guelfs, had joined in this struggle and as a result of their assistance, they enjoyed the full support of the Papacy and the Angevins. Through the Florentine Guelf party, the Angevins and the Papacy had maintained a strong political and economic hold over Florence throughout the last third of the thirteenth century. Although the Guelfs lost direct political control of Florence in the fourteenth century, wealthy Florentine families like the Bardi closely guarded papal and Angevin military and economic interests in Florence.53 These families were not only important in the political structure of the city, but they were also the bankers to the Angevins and the papacy. The Angevin kingdom in the early fourteenth century was in fact a major source of wealth for companies like the Bardi, which “held a monopoly on commerce” in the area and collected tithes for the kingdom.54 The city of Florence, according to Peter Partner, had by 1313 taken its place within the European political and economic stage as “that of an auxiliary in an international struggle in which the papacy, the French monarchy and the Angevin kingdom played decisive roles in shaping and executing policy.”55 Florentine companies, in particular the Bardi, greatly profited from this position; and during the period from 1313 into the 1330s, they expanded their banking and trade market into Angevin territories.56 Thus, when the Bardi commissioned their chapels in Santa Croce, their political and financial interests were intimately linked with those of the Pope and those of King Robert of Naples, the brother of Louis of Toulouse. Payments from an account book of the Bardi company between 1332 and 1335 indicate that Gualterotto de’Bardi was most likely the patron of the exceptional chapel (distinct from the smaller, standard chapels along the transept) dedicated to Louis of Toulouse at

52 See Zervas, The Parte Guelfa (see above, n. 35), pp. 13–23 and 133–35, for discussions of the Guelf party in Florence and of the Angevin political involvement in Florence. 53 Zervas, The Parte Guelfa, p. 18, Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence (New York, 1969), pp. 53–54. 54 Long, “Bardi Patronage,” p. 83. 55 Peter Partner, “Florence and the Papacy 1300–1375,” in Europe in the Late Middle Ages, eds. J.R. Hale, J.R.L. Highfield and B. Smalley (Evanston, 1965), pp. 83–84. In 1313, Clement V pronounced against the Emperor Henry VII. 56 Partner, “Florence and the Papacy,” p. 84.

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the north end of the transept in Santa Croce.57 (Figs. 1 and 8) The total sum of the payments, 1200 gold florins, is quite high, indicating that the money most likely paid for the construction of the exceptional chapel, as well as for all of the decoration, including the fresco cycle (no longer extant), the tomb monument, the cancello (dated 1335), the stained glass windows, and possibly also an altarpiece.58 Andrew Ladis has attributed the tiny bit of extant fresco and the chapel window designs to Taddeo Gaddi, a pupil of Giotto.59 The small fragment of fresco surviving in the chapel vault probably represents St Louis of Toulouse being crowned by Christ in heaven.60 In her reconstruction of the Bardi St Louis frescoes, Jane Collins Long argues that most narrative cycles of the life of the saint, including the frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti at San Francesco in Siena, emphasize Louis’ renunciation of the crown and his dedication to Franciscanism.61 In the scene of Boniface VIII Receiving St Louis as a Franciscan Novice from San Francesco in Siena (Fig. 9), the only extant scene of the original cycle, Louis’ humility and obedience to the Pope are emphasized through his posture of supplication, which is comparable to Giotto’s depiction of the Francis kneeling before Innocent III in the Approval of the Rule in the Bardi St Francis chapel (Fig. 6).

57

According to Giurescu, “Trecento Family Chapels,” (see above, n. 3), p. 126, Gualterotto died in 1315. Giurescu takes the information on Gualterotto’s biography from Passerini, “Genealogia e storia della famiglia dei Bardi,” tav. 25 and 359–64. The phrase “exceptional chapel” was coined by Marvin Trachtenberg in his article, “On Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy as Model for Early Renaissance Church Architecture,” L’Eglise dans l’architecture de la Renaissance, ed. Jean Guillaume (Paris, 1996), 9–39. Giurescu further defines the concept in her dissertation. 58 Giurescu, “Trecento Family Chapels,” p. 127. 59 Andrew Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi: Critical Reappraisal and Catalogue Raisonné (Columbia, MO, 1982), pp. 132–35. The chapel had previously been attributed to Agnolo Gaddi until Irene Hueck discovered documents in the Archivio Ginori Lisci (cod. 183, fol. 9) for the chapel identifying the date as 1332–25 and the patron as Gualterotto di Jacopo de’Bardi. Both Hueck, “Stifter und Patronatsrecht,” (see above, n.3) and Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi, transcribe the document. 60 Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi, p. 132, identifies the scene as Louis of France receiving the crown of sainthood from Christ. As Long, “Bardi Patronage,” (see above, n. 3), p. 211, points out, this identification is based on the idea stated by Ladis that the chapel was dedicated to both Louis of France and Louis of Toulouse. I agree with Long that as in other Franciscan churches, the chapel in Santa Croce was dedicated solely to Louis of Toulouse. 61 Long, “Bardi Patronage,” pp. 208–18. Long contrasts these frescoes with the more dynastically minded altarpiece of St Louis handing the crown to his brother Robert by Simone Martini.


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In comparison to the fresco narrative cycles of the life of St Louis of Toulouse reconstructed by Long, the stained glass windows in the chapel of St Louis at Santa Croce instead present Louis as a royal bishop saint. In the west window, Louis sits enthroned next to his great uncle and role model, St Louis IX of France (Figs. 10 and 11). The four saints below, though difficult to identify, likely represent sainted members of the Angevin and Arpád dynasty. Adrian Hoch identifies a similar cycle in Simone Martini’s decoration of the St Elizabeth chapel on the north and east walls in the north transept of the Lower Church of San Francesco in Assisi.62 On the north wall, Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–31) appears with Francis; Louis of Toulouse, whose mother Mary of Hungary was grand-niece to Elizabeth; Blessed Margaret of Hungary, daughter of King Béla I; and Henry of Hungary, who died in a tragic hunting accident in 1031. On the east wall, Simone painted the Virgin and Child with saints Stephen of Hungary (975–1038), the first king Christian Arpád king and the father of Henry (Henry and Stephen were canonized together in 1083), and Ladislas, (1040–95, canonized in 1192), the heroic Hungarian king who was, like Margaret, the child of King Béla I.63 Some of the same saints appear in the west window in the Bardi St Louis chapel. While the top two seated figures are clearly Louis IX of France on the left and Louis of Toulouse on the right (Fig. 10), the lower four have proved especially difficult to identify. The middle left figure is identified by an inscription as Sigismund, an early sixth-century Burgundian king and martyr, and the lower right half-length figure is identified as Minias, the early Christian Florentine martyr. These inscriptions are most likely from a later restoration of the windows, carried out in the post-Renaissance period,

62 Adrian Hoch, “Beata Stirps, Royal Patronage and the Identification of the Sainted Rulers in the St Elizabeth chapel at Assisi,” Art History 15 (1992), 279–95. 63 Hoch, in “Beata stirps,” identifies Mary of Hungary as the patron of the chapel because she was dedicated to the Franciscans in general and particularly to Elizabeth and her cousin Agnes, whom Hoch identifies as the veiled female saint traditionally identified as Margaret of Hungary. Agnes was a poor Clare, and she received a head veil from Clare herself; because Simone’s figure wears a while veil, Hoch argues she is Agnes and not Margaret. I am convinced that the saint is indeed Margaret because of the overarching Arpád dynastic theme in the frescoes. Hoch, “Beata stirps,” p. 283, also argues that the beardless figure next to the Virgin is another image of Elizabeth. This seems unlikely to me as the figure holds an orb and scepter. The identifications I provide here come from Hoch, “Beata stirps,” Lunghi, The Basilica of St Francis, pp. 156–57, and Martindale, Simone Martini, p. 173.

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although in the case of Sigismund it might have been accurately copied from the original window.64 The figure labeled as Minias is heavily restored; the face and considerable amounts of the drapery are new.65 Thus, there is no reason to believe that these inscriptions are original to the windows. Although the identifications I provide here are tentative, the group of saints as a whole represents the royal, holy lineage of Louis of Toulouse. Louis’ great uncle, Louis IX, the most recently canonized member of his family on his father’s side is appropriately seated next to the young Angevin. The figure below Louis of France identified as Sigismund may indeed be the sixth-century martyred Burgundian king, a distant ancestor of the later medieval French monarchy. The figure to his right (underneath Louis of Toulouse), a middle-aged king holding an orb and scepter and surrounded by a heraldic border that includes the red-and-white striped arms of the Arpád dynasty, is most likely Stephen, the first Christian Arpád king.66 The young saint with shoulder-length hair below Stephen resembles Simone’s image of the young Henry, Stephen’s devout son, in the St Elizabeth cycle. Because Henry died before he could take the throne, he holds his crown, symbolic of his lost reign.67 The figure to his left is possibly St Ladislas, the “virile saint king” of Hungary.68 At the top of the north window, the only section that retains traces of fourteenth-century glass, Christ and the Virgin sit enthroned above 64

Thompson, “The Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass,” p. 202. Thompson, “The Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass,” pp. 202–03. It is possible that the restorers worked from traces of the original inscriptions; however, given that the popularity of the royal saint and of Louis of Toulouse dwindled by the end of the fourteenth century, later restorers were probably not familiar with the saints I identify in this essay. 66 Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi, p. 132, identifies this figure as Henry (the emperor of Germany from 1002–24, not the Arpád king Stephen’s son Henry), but places a question mark next to the attribution. The Arpád heraldry makes the identification of this figure as a Hungarian saint relatively secure; however, at this point I have not been able to securely identify the other heraldic symbols in the borders of the window. The lion/leopard imagery is prevalent in a great deal of early Angevin, German and French heraldry. I have not found the crossing parrot motif in any fourteenth-century heraldry. 67 Hoch suggests in “Beata Stirps,” p. 282, that the light punch marks above the young Henry’s head in Simone’s Assisi fresco represent a “lost” crown and symbolize his curtailed reign. 68 Hoch, “Beata stirps,” p. 283. It is possible that the figure I identify as Stephen is also Ladislas; he resembles the image of Ladislas in the small altarpiece painted by Simone in the 1330s for the Altomonte family who were in service to the Angevin kings. See Martindale, “Simone Martini,” pp. 169–71. 65


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Louis of Toulouse, who holds the royal crown of Anjou and stands once again next to his great uncle, Louis IX (Fig. 12). The lower part of the window was covered by an altar in the sixteenth century, and there is no record of the original iconography.69 A strong possibility is that female Arpád saints, who figure prominently in the Elizabeth cycle in the Lower Church in Assisi and are noticeably lacking from the west window, were depicted in the north window. When the Bardi decided to build their exceptional chapel, there probably were standard chapels available along the transept. Perhaps in an attempt to “keep up with the Baroncelli,” who built their own private chapel at the other end of the transept just a few years before, the Bardi chose to construct their own private chapel that was twice the size of the standard chapels along the transept. According to Giurescu, the patrons of these exceptional chapels received no special treatment in the saying of masses by the friars at Santa Croce; instead, the exceptional chapels were built with the intent of displaying the wealth, prestige and piety of the patrons to the other families who owned chapels in the transept.70 Because the dedications of the standard chapels were probably already decided by the time the transept was complete around 1310, seven years before Louis became a saint, it was not an option for the Bardi to purchase an already-built chapel that was or could be dedicated to Louis of Toulouse. The Bardi chose to construct their own exceptional chapel because of the social prestige that a larger chapel signified, but why would they promote the cult of Louis of Toulouse, both with the Bardi St Francis window, which features the Bardi coat-ofarms above the three Franciscan saints, and particularly with their patronage of the chapel dedicated to the Angevin saint? Both Robert and his father Charles II actively sought Louis’ canonization. After Louis was canonized in 1317, King Robert and his wife Sancia, who were great patrons of the Franciscans in Naples, promoted Louis’ cult vigorously; they went to Marseille to witness the translation of his body; and the king requested relics, Louis’ brain

69 The four figures below St Louis of Toulouse and St Louis of France were created by the De Matteis firm in an early twentieth-century restoration. On the restoration, see Walter Bombe, “Von florentiner Kunstdenkmalern,” Der Cicerone 2 (1910), 521–24, and Thompson, “The Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass of Santa Croce,” (see above, n. 14), pp. 187–89. 70 Giurescu, “Trecento Family Chapels,” pp. 141–55.

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and one arm, for the marble shrine he commissioned.71 For the Angevins, the promotion of Louis’ cult and of related Arpád and Capetian saints, was part of their drive to elevate the status of their dynasty; surely Robert and his father had the recent canonization and Capetian promotion of the cult of Louis IX in mind. Perhaps the Angevins recruited the Bardi to promote their newly canonized Louis; or perhaps the Bardi chose to promote Louis’ cult because of their dedication to the saint and to his family. The Bardi as patrons of the chapel of St Louis brought public attention to their association with the powerful Angevin kingdom. Whatever the impetus for the Bardi was in commissioning the images of Louis of Toulouse, there was likely an agreement of exchange between the families. As Robert promoted the economic interests of the Bardi Company in Angevin territory in the 1320s and 30s, the Bardi promoted the cult of Louis of Toulouse and the Angevin dynasty in Florence by commissioning images of the saint and his dynasty in Santa Croce.72 The cast of saintly and papal characters presented in the Bardi St Louis and St Francis chapel windows visualizes the complex web of political, economic and religious connections between the Franciscans, papacy, Angevins and the Bardi in the early fourteenth century. While similar themes (Franciscan devotion to the Roman church, for example) are also evident in the chapel frescoes in Santa Croce, the stained glass windows appear much more relevant to the politics of the period. One explanation for this difference is the fact that the narrative frescoes in Santa Croce were based primarily on textual sources; they told the “official” stories of the lives of the saints according to canonical literary sources. Because the practice of stained glass in Italy was so young in the early fourteenth century, there was relatively little established iconographic or stylistic tradition from which the artists and iconographers could draw. The stylistic variety in the glass in the Basilica in Assisi and in Santa Croce attests to the “eclecticism” of stained glass in the thirteenth and early four-

71

Adrian Hoch, “The Franciscan Provenance,” p. 25. A member of the Altomonte family, which was in service to the Angevins, likely commissioned a small altarpiece of St Ladislas from Simone Martini in the 1330s. Thus, dedication to the Angevin family saints was not unheard of among the political and economic allies of the Angevins. See Martindale, Simone Martini, pp. 169–71. 72


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teenth centuries.73 While the majority of stained glass windows created in Italy during this period depict standing saints rather than narrative scenes, there is no consistent way in which stained glass was used within iconographic programs. Within Santa Croce, certain chapel windows are more relevant to the theological message of the chapel program, while other windows, like those in the Bardi chapels, have both theological significance and decidedly political overtones.74 It was most likely this lack of tradition that allowed the friars and the patrons a certain freedom in devising the iconography of the Bardi windows. The windows were a place not only for the patron to display his or her “socio-economic needs” and political allegiance, but they were also a place for the Franciscans of Santa Croce to image their allegiances. The Bardi, therefore, loudly decreed their allegiance to the Angevins and their old-fashioned Guelf politics to the other wealthy Florentines who owned chapels in the transept of Santa Croce. The Conventual Franciscans of Santa Croce imaged their loyalty to the Roman church in the midst of a violent controversy between the papacy and the Spirituals within the order.

73 I develop this idea in chapter two of my dissertation. See Thompson, “FourteenthCentury Stained Glass,” pp. 30–64. In the early fourteenth century in Santa Croce, glaziers employed a variety of glazing styles derived from the traditions of northern Europe used in the glazing of San Francesco of Assisi. By the later fourteenth century, Florentine glaziers created windows with relatively similar compositions. 74 The Pulci chapel window in Santa Croce is a good example of a window whose significance is predominantly theological. In the window, the dedicatory saints of the chapel, Lawrence and Stephen, stand above a crowd of “lesser” martyrs composed of saints Maurice, John, Paul and the Florentine Minias. The two frescoes in the chapel depict the martyrdom of Lawrence and Stephen, and the window enlarges the program by placing these two early Christian martyrs in the broader context of martyrdom. See Thompson, “Fourteenth-Century Stained Glass,” pp. 134–42, for further discussion.

INDEX OF NAMES AND PLACES

Adoration of the Magi 178–179 see also Pistoia, S. Andrea; Rome, S. Maria Maggiore Agnolo Gaddi 272n59 Alexander IV (Pope) 223, 242, 242n42 Altichiero 138 n. 90 Altomonte family 274n68, 276n72 Ambrogio Lorenzetti 272 Ambrose 80 see also doctors of the Church Ancona 37, 237 Andrea de’ Bartoli 53n48 Angela of Foligno 24, 48 Memorial 48 Angelo, OFM. (companion of St Francis) 2, 50n37, 109n38 Angelo Clareno, OFM. 33 Annunciation 49n33 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church Antichrist 85, 270 Anthony of Padua, OFM. (Saint) 9n24, 30n112, 35n125, 49n33, 124, 124n40, 259, 259n6, 263–264, 264n25, 266, 266n34, 270 Life of Anthony of Padua 238n36 Tomb of St Anthony 30n112, 35, 35n125 Apocalypse 74, 77–78 see also John the Evangelist Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu see Ubertino da Casale Ascension 55, 77, 77n11, 83n27, 86 see also Florence, Peruzzi Chapel; Naples, S. Maria Donnaregina Assisi Collis Inferni 6 Collis Paradisi 6, 14, 16n59, 30 Consiglio of Assisi 3, 7 Palazzo Comunale 125, 158 Podestà of Assisi 3, 7, 16n58 Porziuncola (S. Maria degli Angeli) 4–5, 33, 49n33 Sacro Convento 10–11, 16, 18–22, 23n83, 24, 26–27, 31, 36, 47, 47n25, 50n38, 52, 92, 180

S. Chiara 19, 19n68, 28, 28n104, 35, 40n3, 123 S. Damiano 5, 125, 131, 187, 238n36, 253n55 S. Francesco also Basilica (of St Francis/S. Francesco) 1–37, 39–93, 95, 113–167, 169–189, 199, 200, 204, 208–209, 213n5, 214, 223, 229, 252, 252n51, 255, 257n1, 260, 265, 273, 276, 277n73 Chiostro dei Morti 27, 27n97 Lower Church 1–37, 39–70, 85n30, 92, 108, 124, 128, 129n60, 138n91, 145n109, 146–147, 153, 154nn129–130, 155, 163n155, 166n162, 175, 179, 183, 192, 199, 229, 232, 232n28, 237n32, 252, 252n51, 255–256, 261, 273, 275 Annunciation 51 apse 18, 18nn62&65, 24, 28n106, 37, 40, 43, 46n21, 68–69, 229, 232, 270n49 Allegory of the Stigmatisation 68 buca delle lampade 20, 22–23, 28, 40, 40n3, 49 cancelli 27–28, 40, 40n3 cantoria 25–26 choir 16n57, 18, 18n64, 28n106, 40, 45n21, 49, 60n81 choir screen 24–26, 28n106, 30, 30n113, 36, 40, 52, 175 see also choir screen ‘Christ among the Doctors’ 145n109, 146 crossing 2, 19, 26, 29, 40, 108, 154, 154n130 Crucifixion 42, 45, 45n21, 50, 53, 163n155 crypt 2 Elizabeth Cycle 274–275 Elizabeth of Hungary altar 29, 29n109 Harrowing of Hell 51, 66 high altar also altar of Blessed Francis 1, 13–18, 20–30, 32,

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index of names and places 34–37, 39, 40, 40n3, 46, 49–50, 62, 64, 68 Infancy of Christ Cycle 42, 45, 51, 56, 154n130 Madonna and Child Enthroned 42 John the Evangelist altar 29, 29n109 Magdalen Chapel 25n90, 51–56, 60, 60n81, 61, 65, 67, 129n60, 154, 154nn130–131 Christ in the House of Simon 56 Crucifixion 54 Miracles of St Francis Cycle 42 Miracle at Suessa 36 nave 20, 23–25, 28, 28nn105–106, 39, 40, 43–44, 50, 53–54, 65 north transept 29, 36, 41n7, 42, 46, 50–51, 53, 56, 59, 61–62, 64, 65, 65n94, 69, 85n30, 154, 154n130, 166n162, 273 Crucifixion 42, 45, 45n21, 53, 163n155 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church, Infancy of Christ Cycle; Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church, Miracles of St Francis Cycle Passion Cycle 42, 44–45, 51, 59, 166n162 Crucifixion 43, 45, 45n21, 50, 53n47, 67, 68, 163n155 Stigmatisation (of St Francis) 36, 42, 67, 68 see also Pietro Lorenzetti pergola 20n71, 26–28, 35 Resurrection Cycle 65 San Lorenzo Chapel 53n48 side chapels 25n91, 40, 42n8, 43, 50 south transept 29, 29n109, 36, 41, 41n7, 42, 42n8, 50, 59, 60n81 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church, Passion Cycle St Louis of Toulouse Chapel 53 St Martin Chapel 42n8, 124n40, 146, 261 St Nicholas Chapel 42n8, 65n94, 124, 128, 154n130 Tomb of St Francis see Francis of Assisi (Saint) transepts 2, 4, 24–26, 28–29, 31–33, 35, 40–46, 49–51, 55,

60n81, 61, 65n94, 67, 163n155, 166n162, 237n32, 255 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church, north transept; Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church, south transept vele 35, 45n21, 46, 68 Glorification of St Francis 68 see also Giotto; Maestro delle Velle Upper Church 26, 26–27n96, 29, 30n113, 31, 44n16, 45n21, 48, 53n47, 58, 66n98, 80, 83n27, 86n35, 88n42, 91, 95, 113–167, 169–188, 199–200, 204, 204n23, 214n8, 215, 235n29, 238–239n36, 249–250, 252, 252n52, 253n57, 255, 255n64, 260–261 apse 66n98, 80, 85, 86nn34–35&37, 88n42, 95–97, 111, 141, 154, 161, 165 choir 161n146, 162n149, 164 counter-façade 77, 77n10, 80, 82, 83n27, 86, 86n35 ‘Pentecost’ 77, 81 crossing 186 Glorification of St Francis window 261 high altar 26, 26–27n96, 27 nave 48, 80, 83n27, 88, 95, 113, 131–132, 153, 155, 159–161, 163–165, 167n165, 172–174, 186 ‘Joseph rescued from the well’ 131, 141 ‘Lamentation’ 131n68 ‘Christ among the Doctors’ 151n121 north transept 41n7, 86n35, 131n68 Crucifixion 45n21, 53n47, 163n155 St Anthony of Padua Chapel St Francis Cycle 24, 36n127, 44n16, 46, 56, 58, 83n27, 113–167, 171, 186–188, 203, 208, 215, 235n29, 249–250, 252, 254–255, 260 Scene 1, Homage of the Simple Man 125, 149, 158 [Scene 2, St Francis Giving His Mantle to a Poor Man]

index of names and places [Scene 3, Dream of the Palace] Scene 4, Miracle of the Crucifix 131, 187 Scene 5, Renunciation of Worldly Goods 150 Scene 6, Dream of Innocent III 126 [Scene 7, Confirmation of the Rule] Scene 8, Vision of the Fiery Chariot 130n68, 150 Scene 9, Vision of the Thrones 130–131, 131n69, 134–135, 140, 148, 152 Scene 10, Exorcism of the Demons at Arezzo 131n68 Scene 11, Trial by Fire (St Francis before the Sultan) 131n68 [Scene 12, Ecstasy of St Francis] Crib at Greccio 24, 24n86, 150, 156, 169–188 [Scene 14, Miracle of the Spring] Scene 15, Sermon to the Birds 144n106 Scene 16, Death of the Knight of Celano 144n106, 203, 254 Scene 17, St Francis Preaching before Honorius III 145–148, 150–151, 235n29 Scene 18, Apparition at Arles 124, 150 Scene 19, Stigmatisation of St Francis 128–129, 134, 149n119, 152, 164n158 [Scene 20, Death and Ascension of St Francis [Scene 21, Apparition to Fra Agostino and to Bishop Guido of Arezzo Scene 22, Verification of the Stigmata 135, 152, 186, 187 Scene 23, St Francis Mourned by St Clare 125, 129 Scene 24, Canonization of St Francis 255 [Scene 25, Dream of St Gregory] [Scene 26, Confession of a Woman Raised from the Dead] [Scene 27, Liberation of the Repentant Heretic]

281

[Scene 28, Legend of St Francis] transepts 96, 161, 161n146, 162n148, 163–164 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Upper Church, north transept; Assisi, S. Francesco, Upper Church, south transept Treasury 17–18 see also Cimabue; dossal; Jacopo Torriti S. Giorgio 5–6, 17–18, 31, 223 S. Rufino 82 Assisi dossal 213n5, 222–224, 228–229, 231–232, 234–235, 251, 251n51, 255 see also dossal Assisi Problem 113, 115 n. 7, 116, 144, 156, 159–160 Augustine (brother) 253n57 Augustine (friar) 259n6 Augustine of Hippo (Saint) 54n54, 67n99, 78, 80 De nuptiis et concupiscentia 102n21 see also doctors of the Church Austria 3 Babylon 72, 83 Bardi 217n14, 221–222, 231, 233, 239–240, 251, 258 Bardi Cycle 258n5 Bardi dossal 175, 175n11, 176n12, 179, 183, 213n5, 216n11, 217n14, 221–222, 227, 230–231, 234, 235n29, 236, 240n40, 241, 247, 250–252 see also dossal Bardi family 216n11, 258–261, 271, 275–277 Bardi St Francis Master 175, 176, 213n5, 221–222, 227, 230, 233, 236–237, 238n36, 239 Bartholomew of Narni 214–215n8, 217–218, 232, 234, 237n32, 238–239n36, 239, 243, 246, 252n52 Bartolo Tedaldi 240, 240n40, 241 Bartolomeo da Pisa, OFM. 3n4, 9, 21, 21n77, 23, 35 De Conformitate vitae beati Francisci 9 Bastia 5 Béla I (King) 273 see also Margaret of Hungary

282

index of names and places

Benedict XI (Pope) 167 n. 165 Benedict XIV (Pope) 82 Benevento 206 Berlinghieri see Bonaventure Berlinghieri Bernard of Clairvaux 98n8, 103 Bernardino of Siena (Saint) 209, 209n29, 272 Bible 104, 182, 209, 236n30 New Testament 54, 74, 77n11, 78, 80, 88, 95, 102, 113, 150, 151n121, 187 Old Testament 54n54, 80, 88, 95, 105, 113, 131, 159 Bologna 25, 34–35, 266 S. Domenico 25 choir screen 25 Tomb of St Dominic see Dominic (Saint) S. Francesco 254, 256n69 S. Nicolò nelle Vigne 24 Bonaventure (Saint) also Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, OFM. 7, 31–32n116, 36n130, 45, 48, 54, 54n54, 58–59, 62–63, 67–68, 70, 80n20, 81n23, 83n27, 91–92, 97, 98n8, 99, 108, 108n37, 110, 129, 135, 149n119, 171n5, 172, 173, 179–181, 183–188, 192, 192n5, 195, 196, 198–199, 206, 206n24, 207, 211n2, 212, 214, 214n7, 218, 237, 249, 260, 262, 262n19, 270, 270nn48–49 Apologia Pauperum 45n19 Legenda Maior 6n13, 31, 37n132, 58, 62, 70, 172, 179–180, 188, 191, 192, 195, 199, 211n2, 212, 214, 214n7, 215, 218, 235n29, 237, 238–239n36, 248, 249, 252, 253, 255, 262, 262n19 (Major) Life of St Francis 80, 206 The Mystical Vine 67 Tree of Life 60 Bonaventure Berlinghieri 211–212, 213n5, 216–222, 224–230, 232–233, 245 see also dossal, Pescia dossal Boniface VIII (Pope) 120, 120n25, 122, 165, 166, 167n165, 197–200, 202–204, 267, 267n36 Boniface VIII Receiving St Louis as a Franciscan Novice 272 Tomb of Boniface VIII 165 Book of Durrow 79n15

Book of Ezekiel see Ezekiel Book of the Universe 207 Buonconte da Montefeltro 205–206 Canto see also Dante Canto 6 (Inferno) 207 Canto 6 (Paradiso) 207 Canto 6 (Purgatorio) 207 Canto 11 (Paradiso) 192, 195 Canto 27 (Inferno) 200, 202, 205, 207 Cavalcaselle, Giovanni Battista 26, 26–27n96, 27 Cavallini see Pietro Cavallini Celano see Thomas (of ) Celano Celestine V (pope) 166 Chaucer 191 Troilus and Criseyde 190 Christ 45, 54, 56, 58–61, 63, 65–69, 74, 77–80, 83, 83n27, 84–87, 89, 92, 95–97, 99–110, 112, 149, 150, 159, 169–170, 172–173, 175, 177–179, 181–185, 187, 193–195, 203, 218, 223, 250, 256, 261–262, 272, 274 Ascension 55, 83n27, 86 Christ child 175, 178–179, 185, 237n33 Christ-Seraph 68 iconography of Christ also images of Christ 66, 72, 216 Incarnation 103 Resurrection 56 ‘the sapiental Christ’ 194 Tomb of Christ 9, 35, 87 wounds of Christ 3, 37, 58, 249, 253 see also Stigmata see also doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles; Francis (Saint); Judas; Mary Chronica XXIV Generalium 8–9, 32n118, 51n38, 266n34 Cimabue 6n12, 29, 29n108, 45n21, 53n47, 96, 98, 100–101, 106–111, 161n147, 162, 163n155, 164–165 Crucifixion 45n21, 53n47 Fall of Simon Magus 131n68 Life of the Virgin 96 Adoration 96 Annunciation 96 Assumption of the Virgin 100 Flight into Egypt 96

index of names and places ‘Mary’s Farewell to the Apostles’ 98 Nativity 96 Presentation/Purification 96 Presentation in the Temple 97, 151n122 Visitation 96 Madonna and Child Enthroned 50–51 ‘The Virgin taking leave of the Apostles’ 137 Virgin and Child Enthroned with St Francis 29 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Upper Church Clare of Assisi (Saint) 5, 19, 40n3, 128, 253n55, 263n23, 273n63 Tomb of St Clare 19n67 see also Assisi, S. Chiara Clement V (Pope) 159, 167n165, 199n20, 271n55 Collis Inferni see Assisi Collis Paradisi see Assisi Colonna family 166n162, 202 see also Giacomo Colonna Comedy see Dante, Commedia Commedia see Dante, Commedia Compaldino 205 Battle of Compaldino 205 Conrad of Offida, OFM. 5 Constantine (Emperor) 87, 197, 198n18 see also Donation of Constantine Constantinople 37, 111, 220n17 Convivio see Dante Cortona 5, 46n22, 55n58 Cosmati 76n6 Dante 189–209 Age of Dante 191 Commedia 189–191, 192n5, 195–196, 199, 200n20, 205, 207–209 Convivio 201 depiction of the damnation of Guido 203 see also Canto; Lady Poverty David (King) 54n54 Domenico Ghirlandaio 256 Dominic (Saint) 24–25, 26n93, 34, 34n124 Tomb of St Dominic 24n87, 26n93, 34, 34n124 Donatello sculpture of St Louis of Toulouse 267n35 Duccio di Buoninsegna 65, 109n38,

283

124n40, 147n115, 157n134, 171 Maestà 65, 157n134, 171, 219 ‘Pact of Judas’ 147n115 Elias of Cortona, OFM. 4n7, 5, 32, 51n38 Elizabeth of Hungary (Saint) 9, 29, 85n30, 259n6, 263n23, 273 Eugenius IV (Pope) 9–10, 14, 14n47, 21 Eve of Pentecost 6 see also Pentecost Ezekiel 72–78, 81, 83, 86–93 Book of Ezekiel 72, 76, 89 Filippo Rusuti 116, 132, 132n76 Florence 116, 123–124, 175, 212, 216n11, 217, 221, 237, 240, 240n40, 241, 244, 246, 251, 254, 256–257, 269, 271, 271n52, 276 Galleria dell’ Accademia 57n66, 116, 256 Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia dell’ Arte (Dutch Art Historical Institute) 1n1 Peruzzi Chapel 137n86, 140 ‘Ascension of St John’ 137, 139 S. Croce 175, 216n11, 221, 239, 254, 254n58, 257–277 Bardi Chapel 258, 258n5 Bardi St Francis Chapel 272, 276 Approval of the Franciscan Rule 262, 272 Renunciation of Worldly Goods 260 Bardi St Louis Chapel 273, 276 Bardi St Francis window 261, 261n14, 262, 264, 266, 268–269, 275–277 Bardi St Louis window 269, 269n45, 276–277 Baroncelli Chapel 139n91 Pulci Chapel 277n74 Tolosini window 261, 261n14 S. Giorgio alla Costa Madonna 157 S. Maria Novella 264n27 Crucifix 157 Spanish Chapel 126n50 Trinità 139n97 see also Masaccio S. Simone 122 S. Trinità Sassetti Chapel 256

284


Foligno see Nicholas of Foligno; Peter of Foligno Francesco Bartoli, OFM. 22n82, 27–28, 33 Francesco Maria Angeli, OFMConv. 12 Collis Paradisi 12 Francis of Assisi (Saint) as Alter Christus 37, 37n134, 45, 62, 68, 89, 95, 187, 263, 263n22 beard of St Francis 123, 157 canonisation 6, 46n22, 58, 62, 211, 214n6, 222, 255–256 Canticle of the Creatures 59 sermon to the birds 86, 212, 212n3, 216–217, 221, 221n19, 226, 235, 235n29, 236n30, 239, 240n38, 246–247, 252n54, 259n8, 260, 260n11, 261, 277 Francis and Death 4–5, 56, 58–59 life of St Francis 31, 43, 113–114, 175, 182, 188, 196, 199, 203, 204, 211–212, 214–215, 217, 221, 235–236, 238, 240, 244, 249–252, 254, 258, 260–261 marriage to Lady Poverty 192–195, 197–200 message of St Francis 203 posthumous miracles 17, 31, 36–37, 46, 46n22, 56, 58, 61–62, 200, 203, 207, 211–256 poverty of St Francis 198 relics 3, 3n5, 5, 10, 11n30, 34, 34n124 Stigmata 3, 4n7, 8n22, 12, 37, 58–59, 68–69, 170, 187, 192, 225, 232, 242, 242nn41–42, 247, 249, 250n50, 253, 253nn55&57, 254, 255n64, 256 translation 6–9, 11, 23, 32, 49n33, 226 Tomb of St Francis 1–37, 40, 46n22, 50, 49n33, 62, 217, 220–222, 224–226, 229, 231–233, 243–244, 246, 253n57, 255 see also Assisi, S. Francesco; Bonaventure; Lady Poverty Frederick II of Hohenstaufen 84, 84–85n30 Gaddi see Agnolo Gaddi; Gaddo Gaddi; Taddeo Gaddi Gaddo Gaddi 122n32, 132n76 Gasperino da Lugano (Maestro) 27n99

Gaufridi see Raymond Gaufridi Ghirlandaio see Domenico Ghirlandaio Giacomo Colonna 166n162 Giacomo degli Oddi, OFMObs. 10 Franceschina 10, 10n29 Giacomo della Marca, OFMObs. (Saint) 10, 10n29 Gian Gaetano Orsini 65n94, 124 Giorgio Vasari 11, 11n32, 18, 27n98, 41, 116, 119, 119n19, 121, 121nn29–30, 127, 132n76, 152–153, 153n127, 154n129, 155, 156, 166, 264n26 Giotto 41, 41n7, 43, 61, 63, 69, 108, 113, 114n2, 115, 115–117, 119–121, 125, 130, 133–134, 137–157, 159, 159n141, 166, 170n3, 171, 183, 204n23, 215, 252, 254, 258–262, 264, 272 Baroncelli altarpiece 37n134 ‘Christ among Doctors’ 145n109, 146 see also Assisi, S. Francesco; Bardi Chapel; Padua, Arena Chapel Giovanni da Murro 119, 119n19, 121, 121n29, 127, 152–153, 154n129, 166, 167n165 Giovanni da Orte 248 Giovanni di Bonino 259, 259n8, 261 see also Master of Figline Giovanni Parenti, OFM. 8 Giuliano da Rimini 122, 124, 128–129, 129n60, 133–134, 150–152 Giuseppe of Cupertino (Saint) 23n84 God 55, 58, 60, 72–74, 76–78, 83–84, 88–92, 95, 96, 100, 103, 108, 110, 172, 181, 183–184, 192, 194–196, 204, 232, 238 God’s glory 73, 89 God’s mercy 60, 67, 204 God-the-Father 95, 99 God’s word 78, 79, 79n15, 93, 102 hand of God 112, 192n5, 196 (holy) man of God 172, 180–181, 182n24, 183, 184 Son of God see Christ throne of God 73, 74n2 Golgotha 87 Gonsalvo da Valboa 121n29, 167n165 Greccio 173, 175, 177–181, 183, 185, 235, 235n29, 239 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, St Francis Cycle

index of names and places Gregory (Pope Gregory the Great) 80 see also doctors of the Church Gregory III (Pope) 178 Gregory IX (Pope) 58, 84, 84–85n30, 86, 91–92, 92n52, 95, 215n9, 252, 254, 256n69, 265, 265n29, 266 Quo elongati 265, 265n29, 266 Recolentes qualiter 6, 91 Gregory X (Pope) 110 Gualterotto de’ Bardi 258n3, 271 Gubbio S. Francesco 162n148, 252n54 Guccio da Mannaia 164n158 Guido (friar) 203 Guido da Montefeltro 199–200, 202, 204, 207, 209 Holy Spirit 78 Honorius III (Pope) 33, 235, 262, 265n30 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, St Francis Cycle Honorius of Autun 103 Iacopo Tedesco 11 Inferno 200–202, 205 Inferno 6 207 Inferno 19 197, 199, 199n20 Inferno 27 199, 201, 206–207, 209 Innocent II (Pope) 105 Innocent III (Pope) 54n51, 217, 238n36, 252, 259n6, 260, 262, 272 Approval of the Rule 272 see also Rome, Lateran basilica Innocent IV (Pope) 86, 86n35, 96, 213n5, 223 Irenaeus of Lyons (Bishop) 78, 80 Isaac Master 116n13, 117, 132n74, 153, 165 Isaiah 194 Isola Romanesca see Bastia Italy 4, 32, 35, 52, 56n62, 57n63, 62, 79n15, 90–91n47, 127, 162, 191, 242, 244, 248, 257, 257n1, 258, 261, 264, 270n49, 276–277 Jacopo Torriti 124nn39–40, 125n43, 132, 132n76, 146, 159, 165, 165n160, 264n25 ‘Patrizio Giovanni before Pope Liberius’ 146 ‘The Creation’ 159

285

see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Upper Church; Rome, S. Maria Maggiore Jerome of Ascoli 91, 91n50 Jerome (Saint) 78, 80 ‘Commentary on the Song’ 104 see also doctors of the Church; pseudo-Jerome Jerusalem 55, 72, 73, 81, 83, 87, 89, 95, 110–111 Church of the Holy Sepulcher 87, 89 Temple of Aphrodite 87 see also Holy Sepulcher; Kingdom of Jerusalem; New Jerusalem; Padua, Arena Chapel Jesus 74, 77, 78, 89, 112, 172n6, 181, 219, 233, 262, 263n21 see also Christ Joachim 97 ‘Joachim’s Dream’ 150 Joachim of Fiore (Abbot) 81n23, 91n47 John (Saint) 29, 111, 139, 277n74 see also Florence, Peruzzi Chapel; Naples, S. Maria Donnaregina John XXII (Pope) 44, 264–266, 268, 268n43, 270 John of Cappella 45 John of Genoa 187 John of Greccio (Sir) 172, 179, 183–185, 188 John of St Paul 262 John the Baptist (Saint) 65n94, 102, 214n5, 264 John the Evangelist 29, 29n109, 72, 74, 74n2, 75, 77–79, 80n20, 81, 88–93, 102 John’s Apocalypse 74–75, 77, 77n9, 79, 81 see also eagle; evangelist; gospel; New Jerusalem Judah 73 Judas 45, 60, 60nn81–82, 61, 65, 67, 69 see also Duccio; Pietro Lorenzetti, Passion Cycle Julian of Speyer, OFM. 7 Justinian (Emperor) 207 Kingdom of Jerusalem 269, 269nn44–45 Knight of Celano 254 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Upper Church, St Francis Cycle

286


Ladislas (Saint) 274 Lady Poverty 192, 195 see also Francis of Assisi (Saint); Sacrum commercium sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate Lateran see Rome Legenda ad Usum Chori see Thomas (of ) Celano Legenda Maior see Bonaventure (Saint) Leo, OFM. (companion of St Francis) 2, 50n37, 109n38 Lorenzetti see Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Pietro Lorenzetti Louis of France (Saint) 272n60, 274, 275n69 Louis of Toulouse (Saint) 258–259, 259nn6&8, 263–264, 266, 266n34, 267n35, 268, 269n45, 270–276 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church; Donatello; Simone Martini Ludovico da Pietralunga, OFMConv. 20, 20n74, 27n99, 29, 36n128, 37, 37n134, 43, 50n36, 58, 153n127 Luke (Saint) 56, 78, 80n20, 86, 111 Tomb of St Luke 13n40 see also evangelist; gospel; ox Maestro delle Velle 107 Wedding of St Francis and Poverty (?) 107 Maestro di Cesi 100 Maestro di S. Francesco see St Francis Master Maestro Espressionista 147n115 Major Life see Bonaventure Marburg 9, 85n30 Marcus of Lisbon, OFMObs. 11 Chronicas 12 Margaret of Hungary (Saint) 273, 273n63 Margherita of Cortona 13n40, 39n*, 62n89 Mariano da Firenze, OFMObs. 10, 10–11n30 Compendium Chronicarum 10 Mark (Saint) 78, 80n20, 86, 86n34, 111–112, 162 see also evangelist; gospel; lion Martini see Simone Martini Mary 72, 85, 85n32, 88, 88n41, 95–101, 104–105, 106n33, 107–110, 194, 205, 237n33 marriage to Joseph 97 Tomb of Mary 106n33 see also Cimabue, Life of the Virgin

Mary Magdalene (Saint) 54–55, 105n31, 232n28 Mary of Hungary 269, 273, 273n63 Masaccio Trinità 139n97 Masseo, OFM. (companion of St Francis) 2, 50n37 Master of Figline 259n8 Matthew (Saint) 54, 60, 78, 80n20, 111 see also angel; evangelist; gospel; man Matthew of Aquasparta (Cardinal) also Matteo d’Acquasparta 167n165, 258n2, 269 Meditations on the Life of Christ 170, 173, 188 Monte Morano 206 Montenero 225–228 Moses 77n11, 103 Narbonne 33, 91, 161n146, 270, 270n49 Naples S. Maria Donnaregina ‘Ascension of St John’ 131n69 Napoleone Orsini (Cardinal) 65n94, 124, 154n129 Nativity 49n33, 96, 142n102, 172, 177, 179, 183, 185 see also Mary Nebuchadnezzar 83 New Jerusalem 73, 74n2, 89–92 New Testament see Bible Niccolò Vannini, OFM. 22, 22n81, 23 Nicholas (Saint) 46n22 Nicholas III (Pope) 86n34, 110–111, 162, 199 Romanitas 86n34 Nicholas IV, OFM. (Pope) 23n83, 29–31, 33, 120–122, 126, 126nn49–50, 127, 158, 160–167, 178 Nicholas V (Pope) 11 Nicholas of Bari (Saint) 65n94 Nicholas of Foligno 225 Nicolò Piccinino (Condottiere) 9, 10 ‘Northern Master’ 162, 162–163n153, 164 Ognissanti Madonna 157n135 Old Testament see Bible Olivi see Peter John Olivi, OFM. Origo, Iris 209

index of names and places Orsini 111, 162, 162n151 see also Gian Gaetano Orsini; Napoleone Orsini (Cardinal); Nicholas III (Pope); Tommaso Orsini Orte 212, 213–214n5, 217n14, 240–241, 246–249 Orte dossal 213n5, 217n14, 240–241, 246–249 see also dossal Padua 35, 119, 135–137, 144, 147–151, 156–157 Arena Chapel 61, 69, 119, 119nn18&20, 123, 129–130, 133, 134n78, 135, 137, 138n90, 139, 141–144, 145n107, 148–151, 152n123, 153, 155–157, 171, 183 Adoration of the Magi 142n102 Annunciation 142 Annunciation to St Anne 142n102 Birth of the Virgin 142n102 Christ among the Doctors 151, 151n121 Crucifixion 138n90, 150, 150n120 Despair 61 Entry into Jerusalem 129–130, 149, 149n119 Flight into Egypt 151n122 Hope 61, 69 Joachim’s Dream 150 Last Supper 144 Nativity 142n102 Noli Me Tangere 150 Pentecost 144, 150 Presentation of the Rods 142 Presentation of the Virgin 151n122 Virgin’s Return Home 151n122 Santo 30n112, 35, 35n125, 56n62, 124n40, 138n90, 162n148 Tomb of St Anthony see Anthony of Padua (Saint) see also Giotto; lamps Palestrina 202 Paradiso 192, 193, 195, 199n19, 200 Paradiso 6 207 Paradiso 11 192, 196–198, 206 ‘Parente di Giotto’ 147n113 Paris 267 Arsenal 236n30 Louvre

287

‘Stigmatisation’ 115n7, 157 Nôtre Dame, 98n9 Pentecost 49n33, 77n11 see also Eve of Pentecost Perdono 33, 33n120, 49n33 Pero Tafur 1, 9, 21–23, 35, 47–48 Perugia 5–7, 9–10, 16, 21, 66, 85n30, 122, 130–131, 163 Palazzo dei Priori 122, 130 Podestà of Perugia 16 S. Francesco al Prato 5, 66 see also priors of Perugia Pescia 212, 212–213n5, 216–222, 224, 226–231, 231n27, 233–236, 239, 245, 249–251 S. Francesco 216n11, 218 Pescia dossal 216–222, 224–229, 233–236, 239, 251 see also dossal Peter John Olivi, OFM. 33, 69, 267–269 Tomb of Peter John Olivi 33 Peter of Foligno 31n115, 229–231 Pietralunga see Ludovico da Pietralunga Pietro Cavallini 116, 116nn8&10, 131n69, 147n115 Pietro Lorenzetti 29, 36, 36n127, 41, 41n7, 65, 65n94, 66, 66n96, 67, 138n91 Crucifixion 43, 67 Passion Cycle 44–45, 59, 166n162 Death of Judas 59, 60n81, 67–68 Suicide of Judas 45 Resurrection Cycle 65 Stigmatisation of St Francis 36 Pilgrim 55 Pisa 57n65, 212, 212n4, 213n5, 214n6, 216, 220n17, 222, 224, 228, 229, 231, 231n27, 234, 240–246, 250, 251 Camposanto 57n65 S. Francesco 244, 245 Pisa dossal 212n4, 213n5, 214n6, 216, 222, 229, 231, 231n27, 234, 240–243, 245, 250 see also dossal Pistoia 179, 212, 213n5, 217, 217n14, 222, 228, 230–231, 234–235, 240, 240n38 S. Andrea 179 Adoration of the Magi 179 Magi before King Herod 179 Pistoia dossal 213n5, 217n14, 222,

288


228, 230–231, 234–235, 240n38 see also dossal Pontano see Teobaldo Pontano (Bishop) Psalm 44 105n31, 109 Psalm 91 85 Psalm 110 194 pseudo-Jerome 105n31 Purgatorio 198 Purgatorio 5 206 Purgatorio 6 207 Raymond Gaufridi 166 Recolentes qualiter see Gregory IX (Pope) Religiosi viri 121, 160, 161n146, 162–164 Richard of Middleton 268n41 Richard of St Victor 79n17 Ridolfo de’ Bardi 258, 258n3 Rieti 255, 255n64 S. Francesco 150n120, 162n148, 215n9, 254 ‘Vision of the Fiery Chariot’ 150n120 Robert of Naples (King) 271, 275 Rome 7, 47, 55, 62, 62n89, 86, 88, 92, 111–112, 123, 162, 166n162, 174n8, 207–208, 223, 238n36, 248, 256, 263 Basilica of Old St Peter’s 18, 88 Lateran basilica 92, 92n53, 126, 264n25 Lateran façade and portico 127, 134 Sancta Sanctorum 130n68, 131n69 S. Clemente 219, 219n17, 220 S. Giovanni in Laterano 126, 162, 162n149 loggia fresco 120, 120n21, 122 porch 126–127, 134 S. Maria in Aracoeli 116, 116n10, 162n148 S. Maria Maggiore 124n39, 162, 162n149, 166n162, 178 Adoration of the Magi 178 apse-mosaics 124nn39–40, 125n43, 146, 165, 165n160, 264n25 façade mosaics 132, 132n76, 146 ‘Patrizio Giovanni before Pope Liberius’ 146 see also Jacopo Torriti Rufino, OFM. (companion of St Francis) 2, 50n37, 109n38 Rufinus (Saint) also San Rufino 52, 82

Sacro Convento see Assisi, S. Francesco Sacrum commercium sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate (‘St Francis’s Holy Intercourse with the Lady Poverty’) 107, 192–195, 197–198 see also Dante; Francis of Assisi (Saint); Lady Poverty Salamanca 21 Salimbene da Parma, OFM. 8 San Miniato al Tedesco 211n1, 212nn3–4, 213, 214n6, 246 S. Francesco 246 Santiago de Compostela 55 Cathedral altar of St James 55 altar of St Mary Magdalene 55 altar of the Holy Saviour 55 Siena 46n22, 109n38, 209, 214n5, 215, 219, 227n23, 250–252 Campo 209 Cathedral 66nn96&98, 157n134 crypt 66n96 tomb of Cardinal Petroni 66n98 see also Duccio Palazzo Pubblico 118n17 S. Francesco 215n9, 254, 272 Siena dossal also dossal of St Francis 46n22, 227n23 see also dossal Sigismund (King) 273–274 Simone Martini 29, 29n109, 65n94, 69n104, 146, 261, 266n35, 268–269, 269nn44–45, 272n61, 273, 274n68, 276n72 ‘Meditation of St Martin’ 146 St Louis of Toulouse altarpiece 69n104, 266n35, 268, 269nn44–45, 272n61 Simone Puzzarelli 6 Siracusa S. Francesco 253n57 Sir Lancelot 202 Sixtus IV, OFM. (Pope) 10, 10–11n30, 11, 14, 15n51, 17–18, 26, 27 Sixtus V (Pope) 178 Solomon (King) 102, 104 Speculum vitae beati Francisci 7 Spoleto 7, 264n25 S. Maria della Stella 100 S. Ponziano 84n30 St Francis Master 6n12, 43, 65, 238n36, 242n42, 252

index of names and places see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church Suessa 31n115, 32n116, 36, 36nn129–130, 62, 62n89, 66, 256 Death of the Boy of Suessa 66 Miracle of the Boy of Suessa 62, 64 Taddeo Gaddi 138n91, 254, 256, 272 Tarchi, Ugo 2, 18, 40n4 Teobaldo Pontano (Bishop) 33n120, 51–52, 55n57 Thomas Aquinas 60n83, 192 Thomas (of ) Celano, OFM. 31, 31n115, 32n116, 36n130, 37n132, 62, 62n89, 80n20, 83, 175, 180–184, 188, 211, 211n2, 216–221, 224–227, 229, 232–233, 236, 239n36, 240–242, 244–248, 251, 254, 262nn17&19 I Celano 175, 180, 180n22, 181n23, 188, 211n2, 216, 219, 221, 225–226, 229–230, 232–233, 238–239, 241, 244, 252, 255 II Celano 180n22, 182n24, 211n2, 241, 246, 247, 251 III Celano 211n3, 237, 238, 241, 243–245, 247, 251–252, 255 Legenda ad Usum Chori 211n2, 217, 219, 221, 224, 225n22, 229–230 Tractatus de Miraculis Beati Francisci 31, 37n132, 62, 211n2, 236, 241, 244, 251 Vita Prima 31, 211, 211n2, 216, 219, 220, 226, 229, 236, 240–241, 244 Vita Secunda 211n2, 244 see also Bonaventure

289

Thomas of Eccleston, OFM. 7–8 Tommaso Orsini 47n25 Torriti see Jacopo Torriti Tractatus de Miraculis Beati Francisci see Thomas (of ) Celano Ubertino da Casale 69, 124, 160, 161n146, 163–164, 269, 269n46, 270, 270n50 Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu 163, 193 Umbria 30n113, 32n119, 76n8, 89, 174n9, 175, 214n5 Ugolino Boniscambi (of Montegiorgio) 85n31 Ugolino da Siena 264, 264n27 Ugolini Manunsie 87n40 Ugo Panciera 169, 171, 186 Vasari see Giorgio Vasari Vatican 32, 212, 213n5, 223–224, 229, 232, 234, 251 Vatican dossal 224, 229, 232, 234, 251 see also dossal Via Francigena 208 Virgil 192 Aeneid 192 Wadding, Luke, OFMConv. 10, 11n30 Annales Minorum 10 William of England, OFM. 32, 50n36, 51n38 Tomb of William of England 32 Witte, K. 114n2, 116n12 Zedekiah

83

SUBJECT INDEX

allegory (allegorical) 44, 46, 10, 83, 102, 107, 192–193, 195, 199 see also Ezekiel; Francis (Saint); Lady Poverty altar 11, 14, 14n46, 15n49, 16, 16n55, 17, 19, 20, 20n71, 22–23, 23n84, 25n90, 26, 28, 29nn108–109, 34n124, 36, 36n130, 37n132, 39–40, 47, 49–52, 55n56, 60n81, 65n94, 80, 85n30, 87, 90, 131, 138, 138n90, 141, 173–177, 179, 183–185, 216, 219, 221–223, 226–229, 232, 236, 238, 243–244, 248, 254–255, 258–259, 261, 263–264, 270, 275 altar of Blessed Francis see Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church, high altar see also Assisi, S. Francesco; Florence, S. Croce; Santiago de Compostela, Cathedral altarpiece 50n37, 66, 100, 122, 124, 128, 129n60, 151, 152, 215–216, 240, 244, 264, 264n26, 268–269, 269n45, 272, 274n68, 276n72 Beato Agostino altarpiece 46n22 fresco altarpiece 29, 29n109, 64–65n94 see also Altomonte family; Florence, S. Croce; Giuliano da Rimini; Perugia, S. Francesco al Prato; Pisa; Pistoia; Simone Martini anagogy (anagogical) 80 angel 63, 63n91, 68, 97, 203, 206, 253 Angel of the Sixth Seal 135, 195 animal 73, 82, 85–87, 90, 179, 184 antigraphology (antigraphological) 127–129, 132–134, 144, 149, 149n119, 151, 154, 157 antiphonary 16–17, 152n123, 174 apostle 81, 86, 95, 98–100, 112, 150, 237n33, 250 see also doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles arch (fictive) 17, 54, 60n81, 65n94, 67, 72, 74, 76, 76n8, 87–88, 88n41,

131, 134, 138n90, 141n99, 142–143, 143nn104–105, 146–147, 176, 176n12, 186, 261 basilisk 85, 85n31 bell 84n30, 87 bird 83, 87, 221, 221n19 see also Francis (Saint), sermon to the birds bolgia 200 branch 12n37, 33, 83–84, 87, 127 buca delle lampade see Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church cancelli 26n93, 27, 27nn97&99, 28, 28n104, 40, 40n3, 272 see also Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church capital (architecture) 28, 28n104, 36, 36n128, 88, 143n104, 174 Cathar 213n5, 247–248 cedar 83–84 chambers (fictive) 134–135, 137–139, 141, 141n100, 142, 142n101, 144, 145n107, 147, 149 chariot 73, 250 see also Rieti, S. Francesco choir 139, 175, 176n12, 177, 183, 263 choir screen 30n113, 35, 40, 173–174, 174n9 see also Assisi, S. Francesco Church 74, 77, 81, 83, 86–87, 89, 90, 93, 103, 108n37, 110, 112, 167, 180, 195, 197–198, 198n18, 242, 253, 254 Catholic Church 120 Church Militant 91, 95, 103, 111 see also doctors of the Church Circle of Mars 196 Circle of the Sun 199n19 colonnette 72, 87–88 column 26, 39–40, 74, 76, 86n35, 88, 174, 222, 226, 229 confession 201, 203, 206, 254–255 controls 137, 137n85, 146, 148, 149n119, 150n120

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contuition (contuitio) 188 Conventuals see Franciscans cornice (fictive) 131, 173 cosmatesque 76, 76n6, 174 cosmati (cosmati-work) 26–27, 40, 52 cross 169, 186–187, 194, 198, 235, 242n42, 264n25 creature 72–75, 77–80, 83, 83n27, 102n21, 108, 112 doctors of the Church 80, 125, 158 see also Ambrose; Augustine; Gregory; Jerome doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles 44–45, 268n43 Dominicans 24, 25n89, 34n124, 108, 248, 264, 264n27 Donation of Constantine 197–198 door 18nn61–62, 24, 56, 71–72, 87–90, 139, 172, 194 dossal 14n46, 175, 175n11, 179, 210–256 see also Assisi; Bardi; Orte; Pescia; Pisa; Pistoia; Siena; Vatican dossal of St Francis see Siena dossal dragon 85, 85n31 dramatis personae 206 eagle 72–75, 78–79, 80n20, 82–86 evangelist 72, 77n9, 78–80, 83, 90–91, 111–112, 178n17 see also gospel; John; Luke; Mark; Matthew exegesis (four-fold) 72, 103 façade 26, 71–93, 126, 126n51, 127, 132, 162, 162n151 fashion 118–119, 122, 122n35, 123, 123n36, 158 fenestella (confessionis) 19–21, 23 flower (floral) 72, 74–75, 82, 84, 88, 100 Fourth Lateran Council 52 Franciscan art 42, 189 Franciscan friar 47, 63, 268n41 Franciscan Order 7, 54n51, 97–98, 113, 160, 167, 171, 190, 253, 263n22, 267, 267n36 Franciscan vision 189 Franciscans 25, 35n125, 41, 42n8, 43, 50n38, 51–52, 58, 60, 67, 95, 107–108, 110–111, 178, 184, 190, 236n30, 248–251, 260, 263, 263n23,

265–266, 268n43, 269, 270n50, 273n63, 275–277 Conventual Franciscans also Conventuals 123–124, 157, 158n139, 265–268, 277 Spiritual Franciscans also Spirituals 123–124, 160, 164, 166, 265, 265nn29&31, 267n40, 268 fresco 25, 29, 31, 35–37, 39–70, 77–78, 80–81, 88, 95–97, 99, 106–107, 113–167, 170–173, 175, 179, 182, 184–187, 191, 199–200, 203–204, 206, 208, 219–220, 253, 254, 256–259, 261–263, 272–273 see also Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Assisi, S. Francesco; Cimabue; Florence, S. Croce; Giotto; Padua, Arena Chapel; Pietro Lorenzetti; Rome, S. Clemente; Siena, S. Francesco; Simone Martini glass 74–76, 77n10, 257, 257n1, 260n9, 270, 270n49, 274, 276 see also stained glass (window) gospel 78, 79n15, 83, 83n27, 112, 171–172, 179, 181, 183, 185, 188, 262, 263n21 see also evangelist; John; Luke; Mark; Matthew gothic 164, 173, 174n8 gothic architecture 71, 81n21, 84n30, 89, 174, 263n24 Heaven of Mars 197 Heaven of the Sun 195–196 hell 61, 68, 87, 199, 205 hermeneutics 71, 80n19 see also scripture high priest 60, 201 Holy Sepulcher 72, 87, 89 see also Jerusalem hope 56, 58–61, 63n92, 64–70, 73 see also Giotto human 58, 72–73, 78, 82, 87, 103, 105, 107–109, 167 humanity (humankind) 78, 87, 110 integrazionisti 114–115, 115n7, 119, 157 see also separatisti Israelites 73 king 59, 83, 108, 172, 172n6, 181 ‘King Death’ 57

subject index lamb 74, 74n2, 77, 79, 239, 251 see also Jesus lamps (fictive) 16–17, 20, 23, 23n84, 39, 40, 99, 134–137, 139–141, 143n104, 144, 147–149, 155 lion 72, 75, 75n4, 78–79, 80n20, 85, 85nn31–32, 201, 205, 274n66 loculus 13, 15, 15n49, 18–19, 19n68, 23 man 75, 78–79 marble 24, 26, 40, 52, 65n94, 76, 76n6, 87, 139n95, 143, 175, 276 medieval drama 176–179 Middle Ages 17, 99n12, 171, 173, 178, 182, 190–191, 193 mosaic 76, 76nn6&8, 78, 105–106, 132, 264 see also cosmatesque; Jacopo Torriti; Rome, S. Maria Maggiore nave 20, 23–25, 28, 39–40, 43–44, 48, 50, 53–54, 65, 80, 88–89, 95, 113, 131–132, 138–140, 153, 155–156, 158–161, 163–165, 172–174, 186 oculus 74–77, 77n9, 79, 81 ox 72, 75, 75n4, 78, 79, 80n20, 150, 172, 172n6, 173, 175, 178–180 papacy 72, 85n30, 152, 159, 167, 199n20, 262–265, 267–271, 276–277 Parousia 77, 77n11, 89 pergola see Assisi, S. Francesco, Lower Church perspective 60n81, 82, 88n42, 90–91, 110, 130, 137–138, 140, 142n101, 144, 148, 173, 182 pilgrim (pilgrims) 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 16, 18, 20–26, 28–31, 33–35, 37, 39–41, 44, 46–51, 54–56, 59, 60n81, 61, 64, 65n94, 66–70, 87, 90, 166, 195–196, 200, 207, 228 pilgrim accounts also pilgrimage account 47, 48 pilgrim iconography 228 pilgrim route 53 pilgrimage 4, 22, 22n81, 23, 25, 31–34, 46n22, 48, 54–55, 59, 199, 226, 233–234, 243, 250 pilgrimage centre 2, 217 see also Assisi

293

pilgrimage literature 9 plinth 85–86 Portiuncula 92, 92nn51–52 poverty 44–45, 57, 83n27, 95–96, 98n8, 107, 180, 193–198, 265, 267 apostolic poverty 265, 265n30, 268, 269 Christological poverty 44 evangelical poverty 193–194 Franciscan poverty 44, 199, 267, 267n39, 268 poverty of Christ 44–45, 268n43 poverty of the Church 197 see also Dante; doctrine of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles; Lady Poverty priors of Perugia 9 prophecy 71–73, 75, 83, 86–87, 92, 109, 126 see also Ezekiel prophet 72, 81, 83, 89–90, 99, 106, 177, 196 see also Ezekiel psychomachia 206, 209 purgatory 205–206 Renaissance 99n12, 104, 117, 190, 273 restoration 26n96, 73, 76n7, 77, 83, 89, 91–93, 111n41, 130n66, 273, 275n69 river 74, 74n2, 90 river of life 74 rivers of Paradise 83 roll 79 see also scroll Roman 34, 54, 62n89, 65–67, 76nn6&8, 89n44, 90, 92n53, 110–111, 111n42, 116, 125n43, 146, 157, 161n146, 162, 174 Roman Church 95, 262, 276–277 Roman Empire 207 rose window 72, 74–77, 79–81, 83, 88, 90–91 rosette see rose window salvation 60, 70, 74, 97, 111, 180, 196, 200, 203–204 salvation history 81, 81n23, 90, 93, 103 sandals 124, 124n41, 158, 158n139 scripture 72, 74–75, 78–80, 192, 194n12 Hebrew Scriptures 72

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see also Bible; hermeneutics scroll 57, 79, 79n17, 98, 105, 260 see also roll sculpture 74–75, 82, 84, 84n30, 90, 98, 179, 215n9, 267n35 seal 7, 16n57, 58, 78–81, 192, 192n5, 195–196, 265n30 see also Angel of the Sixth Seal; Apocalypse separatisti 115, 155–157 see also integrazionisti Spirituals see Franciscans splay 88 spoke 75n5, 76n8, 81 sprig 83, 86 stained glass (window) 48, 52, 65n94, 66n98, 97, 238n36, 252, 257–277 see also glass Stigmata 3, 4n7, 8n22, 10, 12, 36n127, 37, 58–59, 68–69, 170, 186–187, 192, 225, 232, 242, 242nn41–42, 247, 249, 250n50, 253, 253nn55&57, 254, 255n64, 256, 259n6 stringcourse 72, 82–87, 90, 186 temple 73–74, 74n2, 77–78, 88–91, 92n53, 97, 158 see also Ezekiel theophany 72–73, 75–81, 88–93 see also Ezekiel; John the Evangelist third status ecclesiae 198 Thomistic basis 190

throne 73–74, 74n2, 77, 98n8, 105, 105n31, 109–110, 135n82, 140, 267, 269n45, 274 papal throne 85–86, 86n35, 96, 148, 148n118 Throne of Wisdom 178–179 tomb 1–37, 39–41, 47–50, 59, 61, 65, 66, 69, 89, 219–231, 244, 253n57, 254–255, 272 tramezzo see choir screen tribes (of Judah) 81, 89 tropology (tropological) 80 vegetation 82 vicars of Christ 197 vine 72, 83–84, 87 see also Bonaventure vine-scroll 87, 89 water 24n83, 73, 89–90, 92n53, 214n8, 219, 232, 234–235, 238n36 wheel 73–77, 81, 111 see also rose window windows (fictive) 52, 52n44, 63–64, 65n94, 66n98, 72, 75–76, 82, 85n30, 97, 143n104, 145–147, 164n158, 214n8, 238–239n36, 250, 252n52, 256–261, 263–264, 266, 267n36, 269, 272–275, 277, 277nn73–74 see also rose window; stained glass (window) wings 75, 82, 182n24

INDEX OF MODERN SCHOLARS

Note: This overview includes scholars from 1900 onwards. Ahlquist, Gregory W. 211 Armstrong, Gregory T. 89, 89n45 Armstrong, Regis J. 5n9, 45n20, 80n20, 84n28, 91nn48–49, 107n36, 135n83, 173n7, 181n23, 182n24, 193n7, 206n25, 211n2 Auerbach, Erich 192 Autpert, Ambrose 79n17

46n21, 113n1, 120–121, 149n119, 161, 174n9 Cousins, Ewert 188n27 Cowen, Painton 75n5, 77n9 Crepaldi, Vittorio 86n35

Battisti, Eugenio 86n37 Bellosi, Luciano 41n7, 46n22, 75n3, 114n2, 115nn4–5, 117n16, 119, 122–125, 130–133, 138, 146, 146n110, 147, 154 n. 129, 158, 162, 163 n. 153 Belting, Hans 89n44, 108n37, 216, 242 Bennett, Jill 169–171, 185, 187 Biddle, Martin 87n38 Binski, Paul 1n1, 30n112, 113n1, 163 n. 153 Blume, Dieter 150n120, 164n158, 236n30, 239 Bologna, Ferdinando 124, 124n40, 132n76 Boskovits, Miklós 120n25, 122n30, 123n36, 124n40, 127, 130n67, 131n72, 152n124, 166, 213n5, 240n39, 259n8 Brandi, Cesare 162

Eliot, T. S. 208 Emmerson, Richard K. 135n83, 195n15

Calabrese, Antonella 86n35 Caravaggi, Roberto 86n35 Cherchi, Paolo 189–190 Claussen, Peter Cornelius 76n6 Cole, Bruce 129nn60–61, 159, 258n5 Cook, William R. 17n61, 46n22, 113n1, 124n41, 125n43, 127n55, 158n39, 175–176, 189n1, 191, 211, 213–214n5, 215n8, 227n23, 242n42, 246n47, 252n53, 255n64, 258n5, 263n22, 264n25 Cooper, Donal 1, 5n11, 30n113, 35n125, 37n130, 39, 39n*, 40n3,

DeLubac, Henri 79n17 Donaldson, James 78n12 91n47,

Fea, Carlo 12–13, 13nn39&41, 18 Ferguson, Everett 89n45 Fisher, Roy 129–130, 133, 149 Fleming, John 191–194 An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages 191 Forsythe, Ilene 178 Francovich, Géza de 82n26 Frugoni, Chiara 4n7, 32n118, 36n128, 57, 57n65, 127n54, 135n81, 158n139, 169, 213n5, 238 Gardner, Julian 14n48, 132n76, 269n45 Gatti, Isidoro, OFMConv. 2, 10, 11n30, 13nn40&42, 14, 14nn45&47&49, 15n51, 19n68, 20n71, 22, 23 La Tomba di San Francesco nei Secoli 2 Gilbert, Creighton 143n105 Gioseffi, Decio 138 Glass, Dorothy 176, 176–177n14, 178, 179 Gnudi, Cesare 125n44 Harrison, Charles 159n141 Hellmann, J.A. Wayne, OFMConv. 5n9, 80n20, 135n83, 173n7, 181n23, 193n7 Hertlein, Edgar 18, 18n64

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Herzman, Ronald B. 91n47, 135n83, 189, 198n17 Hicks, Carola 79n15 Hiscock, Nigel 81n21 Hueck, Irene 24, 24n85, 25n90, 26n95, 28n106, 29n108, 36n128, 51, 51n42, 52–53, 55n57, 258n3, 272n59 Hutton, Edward 76n6 Iacuzzi, Annamaria

71n1, 75n4

Kleinschmidt, Beda 59, 125n46, 266n35 Kobler, K. 76n8, 77n9 Ladis, Andrew 115n7, 143n105, 272, 272n60, 274n66 Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg 85, 85nn31–32, 86n34, 88n44, 91n50, 95, 95n1, 97n7, 100nn16–17, 105n29, 106n31, 111n41, 162 Lees-Milne, James 88n43 Longhi, Roberto 114n2, 138, 139, 139n97, 142n101 Lunghi, Elvio 6n12, 37, 41n5, 43n10, 45n21, 65n94, 69, 84–85n30, 154n130, 167n165, 242n42, 260n11, 273n63 Maginnis, Hayden 42n8, 44, 115, 115n7, 148n118, 157n135, 259n5 Marinangeli, Bonaventura, OFMConv. 2, 2–3n3, 10, 13n41, 14–17, 18n64, 19, 21–22 ‘La tomba di S. Francesco attraverso I secoli’ 2n3 Martin, Frank 52n44, 66n98, 76n7, 81n22, 257n1 Martinelli, Valentino 153n128, 154n131, 260n10 McGinn, Bernard 81n23 Meiss, Millard 98n11, 100n17, 128, 129n61, 133, 141n99 Michaels, Daniel T. 71 Millozzi, Michele, OFMConv. 13n42, 14–17, 21 Mulvaney, Beth A. 131, 135, 150, 156, 169 Murray, Peter 117n16, 119n20, 120, 120nn24–25, 121n30, 125n47, 126, 126n49, 153n127, 154n129

Nees, Lawrence 79n15 Nessi, Silvestro 29nn108–109, 47n25, 53n49, 88n41, 213n5 Nomura, Yukihiro 149n119 Oertel, Robert

115n4, 120n21

Parronchi, Alessandro 116n8 Peroni, Adriano 76n8 Petrocchi, Giorgio 189 Picari, Oreste 86n35 Poeschke, Joachim 81n21, 131n70 Prandi, Adriano 140, 147n116 Previtali, Giovanni 137n86, 147n113, 152n124 Pujmanova, Olga 158n139 Ranke, Winfried 76n8 Ratzinger, Joseph 81n23 Richards, John 138n90 Rintelen, Friedrich 114n2, 116n12 Roberts, Alexander 78n12 Robson, Janet 1n1, 25, 35, 36n129, 39, 45n17, 60n82, 120–121, 121n26, 161 Robson, Michael, OFM. 5n9, 8n22, 9n24 Rocchi, Giuseppe 88n42, 90n46 Ruf, Gerhard, OFMConv. 1n1, 2n2, 27n97, 42n9, 58, 60, 76n7, 80n19 Sacconi, Giuseppe 76n6 Santarelli, Giuseppe 193, 193n8 Schaff, Philip 78n14 Schenkluhn, Wolfgang 18, 18nn62&64–65 Schlegel, Ursula 134, 134n79, 135, 136n84, 138, 138n90, 139, 139nn96–97, 143n103, 145n108 Short, William J., OFM. 5n9, 135n83, 173n7, 181n23, 182n24, 193n7 Simon, Robin 51n42, 138n89 Singleton, Charles S. 194n10, 209n29 Singleton, Kate 86n35 Stallings-Taney, M. 171n5 Stubblebine, James 117nn14&16, 120n22, 128n56, 129n60, 151n122, 157n134, 260n11 Supino, I. B. 119n18

index of modern scholars Tartuferi, Angelo 115n7, 116n11, 213n5, 223n20 Terzi, Arduino 178, 178n17 Thode, Henry 75n3 Thompson, Nancy M. 257, 261n14, 277nn73–74 Todini, Filippo 130n68, 147n116, 214n5 Trexler, Richard 8n22 Vauchez, André 4, 4n8, 13n40, 37n130, 46n22, 55n58, 62n89, 242n41, 243n44, 253n56 Venturi, Adolfo 84n30 de Wesselow, Thomas 113, 118n17, 123n36, 157n134, 170n3 White, John 109n38, 113–114, 117, 126n49, 128, 128n56, 129n61,

297

130n64, 133–134, 137n85, 143n105, 151, 155n132, 162n151, 174n8 Wickhoff, Franz 114n2, 117n16 Wiener, Jürgen 24n85, 71n1, 82, 84n30, 87n40 Young, Karl

177, 177n15, 178

Zaccaria, Giuseppe, OFMConv. 2, 2–3n3, 5n12, 10, 11n31, 13n41, 14–17, 18n64, 21–22, 87n40 Zanardi, Bruno 30, 36n129, 116, 116n8, 127n54, 135n81, 144n106, 152, 152nn123–124, 154n129, 156, 156n133, 158n139, 165n161, 166n163 Zeri, Federico 116, 116n8, 127n54, 135n81, 152n124, 158n139

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BLACK & WHITE PLATES

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1. A girl with a twisted neck is cured at St. Francis’s tomb, detail of painted panel of St. Francis and his miracles, ca. 1253, Treasury of the Sacro Convento, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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2. An exorcism at St. Francis’s tomb, detail of painted panel of St. Francis and his miracles, ca. 1253, Treasury of the Sacro Convento, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)


4. Cross-section of the 1818 excavation of St. Francis’s tomb.

3. Plan of the 1818 excavation of St. Francis’s tomb.

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5. ‘F’ initial, Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, cantorino 2, Ms. 1, f. 235r (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi). This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section.

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6. Cross-section of the 1860 excavation of St. Clare’s tomb.

7. High altar and pergola, Basilica of S. Chiara, Assisi.

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8. High altar of the lower church with supplicant and grate, engraving from Pietro Ridolfi, OFM Conv., Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis libri tres, Venice, 1586.

9. High altar of the lower church with surrounding pergola, engraving from Francesco Antonio Maria Righini, OFM Conv., Provinciale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum S. Francisci Conventualium, Rome, 1771.

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10. Sections from the lower church pergola incorporated into the first floor of the Chiostro dei Morti in the early twentieth century.

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11. Author’s reconstruction of the transept area of the lower church, S. Francesco, Assisi.

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12. View of the transept and high altar, lower church, S. Francesco, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

13. Pietro Lorenzetti, fictive bench, ca. 1316/7-19, south-eastern corner of the south transept, lower church, S. Francesco, Assisi. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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1. Ground plan of the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi. Reconstruction by Donal Cooper.

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2. View of the north transept of the lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

3. View of the south transept and vele of the lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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4. Glorification of St. Francis, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1308-11. Vele, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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5. Crucifixion, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1308-11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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6. View from the nave into the Magdalen Chapel, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)


7. The Voyage to Marseilles and the Miracle of the Abandoned Mother and her Baby, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305-08. Magdalen Chapel, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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8. Francis and Death, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1308-11. North transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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9. Death of Judas, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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10. Allegory of Hope, Giotto ca. 1302-05. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY)

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11. Allegory of Despair, Giotto ca. 1302-05. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo: Commune di Padova-Assessorato alla Cultura-Cappella Scrovegni)

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12. Miracle of the Roman Notary’s Son, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305-11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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13. Death of the Boy of Suessa, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305-11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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14. Resurrection of the Boy of Suessa, attrib. Giotto workshop ca. 1305-11. North transept, lower church. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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15. Entombment, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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16. Deposition, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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17. Harrowing of Hell, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

18. Resurrection, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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19. Crucifixion, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

20. Stigmatisation of St. Francis, attrib. Pietro Lorenzetti ca. 1316/7-19. South transept. (Photo: Archivio Fotografico, Sacro Convento, Assisi)

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1. Upper church façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

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2. Rose window, upper church façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

3. Detail of rose window, upper church façade, basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

4. Rose window with doctors of the church, west façade, Cathedral at Orvieto, Italy.

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5. Stringcourse, upper church exterior façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

6. Papal throne, upper church apse, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

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7. Detail of papal throne plinth, upper church apse, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

8. Detail of stringcourse, north eagle, upper church exterior façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

[Michaels] [Cooper]

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chapter two

9. Detail of sculpted lintel, east façade, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem.

10. Double portal, upper church exterior façade, Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. (Photo: ASSISI.DE – Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

[Michaels] [Cooper]


11. Waterways of the Assisi commune.

31

[de Wesselow] [Cooper]

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chapter two

1. Stigmatisation. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. Detail. The whole composition is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section. Detail. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)



31

2. Giuliano da Rimini, Stigmatisation. Detail of Madonna and Child altarpiece, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston)


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3. Giotto, Entry into Jerusalem. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici)



31

4. St Clare Mourning St Francis. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)


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chapter two

5. Patrizio Giovanni before Pope Liberius. Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. (Photo: Alinari)



31

6. Homage of the Simple Man. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church.This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)


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7. Vision of the Thrones. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)



31

8. Giotto, chancel arch. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici)


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9. Giotto, left-hand fictive chamber (C2). Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici)



31

10. Giotto, right-hand fictive chamber (C1). Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo by kind permission of the Comune of Padua, Musei Civici)


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chapter two

11a. Giotto, lamp (P2). Detail of Fig. 9 [left-hand fictive chamber (C2). Arena Chapel]

11b. Lamp (A1). Detail of Fig. 7 [Vision of the Thrones. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church] This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section.



31

12a. Giotto, lamp (P1). Detail of Fig. 10 [right-hand fictive chamber (C1). Arena Chapel]

12b. Lamp (A2). Detail of Mulvaney, Fig. 4 [Verification of the Stigmata. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church] This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section.


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chapter two

13. Diagram: the bases of the hanging lamps A1, A2, P1, P2 and F.



14. Giotto, left-hand fictive chamber (C2) viewed from an angle. Arena Chapel, Padua. (Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz)

31


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chapter two

15. St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)



31

16. Giotto, Ascension of St John. Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. Detail. (Photo: Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino)


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17. Giotto, Christ among the Doctors. S. Francesco, Assisi, lower church. Detail. (Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz)



31

18. Inverted detail (H) of Fig. 15 [St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church] This figure is also printed in colour in the Colour Plates Section.


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19a. Diagram: inverted detail (H) of St Francis Preaching before Honorius III.

19b. Diagram: left-hand fictive chamber (C2), with lamp omitted.


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chapter two

[Cooper]


COLOUR PLATES

31

[Cooper]


5. ‘F’ initial, Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, cantorino 2, Ms. 1, f.235r.

31

[Cooper] [Lavin]

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chapter two

1. Cimabue, Assumption of the Virgin. Detail, fresco, Assisi, San Francesco, upper church, apse, lower tier.

[Cooper] [Lavin]


31

2. The Cesi Master, Stella Altarpiece, tempera on wood, 191 x 175.5 cm. Detail, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Musée Ile de France Foundation.

3. Madonna and Child. Lyons, Bibliothèque de la Ville, ms 410-11, Bible 1, fol. 207v.

[Cooper] [Lavin]

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chapter two

4. Solomon and his Beloved. Rheims, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 18, Bible, fol. 149r.

5. Sponsus and Sponsa, attri. to Master Alexander. Bede Commentary, Cambridge, Eng., King’s College, ms 19, fol. 21v.

[Cooper] [Lavin]


31

6. Christ and Mary in Glory. Rome, Santa Maria in Trastevere, apse mosaic, detail.

7. Emblem of Matrimony. Drawing on vellum, Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Model book, Cod. 507, fol. 1v, detail.

[Cooper] [Lavin]

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chapter two

8. William Y. Ottley, Assumption of the Virgin. Detail, engraving after Cimabue, from Seroux d’Agincourt, detail.

9. Cimabue, Mary and Christ in Glory Approached by Franciscan Friars. Assisi, San Francesco, upper church, apse, first scene on right, fourth tier. (Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz)



31

1. Stigmatisation. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)

[Cooper] [de Wesselow]

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chapter two

4. St Clare Mourning St Francis. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)



31

6. Homage of the Simple Man. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)


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chapter two

7. Vision of the Thrones. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www.assisi.de Stefan Diller)



11b. Lamp (A1). Detail of Fig. 7 [Vision of the Thrones. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church]

31

12b. Lamp (A2). Detail of Mulvaney, Fig. 4 [Verification of the Stigmata. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church]


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15. St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church. (Photo: © www. assisi.de Stefan Diller)



31

18. Inverted detail (H) of Fig. 15 [St Francis Preaching before Honorius III. S. Francesco, Assisi, upper church]

60

1. Institution of the Crib at Greccio, from the Legend of St. Francis, 2. St. Francis with Scenes from his Life, Bardi ChapSan Francesco, Assisi (Photo: © 1985 ASSISI.DE - Stefan Diller, el, Santa Croce, Florence (Photo: © 1982 ASSISI. DE - Stefan Diller, Würzburg) Würzburg)

[Mulvaney] [Cooper]

chapter two

[Mulvaney] [Cooper]


31

3. Institution of the Crib at Greccio, detail from St. Francis with Scenes from his Life, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence (Photo: © 1982 ASSISI.DE - Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

5. Miracle of the Crucifix, from the Legend of St. Francis, San Francesco, Assisi (Photo: © 1985 ASSISI.DE - Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

60

4. Verification of the Stigmata, from the Legend of St. Francis, San Francesco, Assisi (Photo: © 1985 ASSISI.DE - Stefan Diller, Würzburg)

[Mulvaney] [Cooper]

chapter two

[Herzman] [Cooper]


31

1. The Miracle of the Resuscitation of a Woman. San Francesco, Assisi, upper church.

[Cooper] and Cook] [Ahlquist

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chapter two

1. Bonaventura Berlinghieri, panel with 6 stories from the life and miracles of St Francis, 1235. San Francesco, Pescia.

[Ahlquist and [Cooper] Cook]


2. The cure of the crippled girl. Detail of Fig. 1.

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60

chapter two

3. The cure of cripples and lepers. Detail of Fig. 1.



4. The cure of Bartholomew of Narni. Detail of Fig. 1.

31


60

chapter two

5. Exorcisms. Detail of Fig. 1.



31

6. Bardi St Francis Master, panel with 20 stories from the life and miracles of St Francis, ca. 1245. Santa Croce, Florence.


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chapter two

7. Death of Francis with cripples at his bier. Detail of Fig. 6.

8. Cure of the crippled girl and exorcisms. Detail of Fig. 6.



9. Francis rescues sailors. Detail of Fig. 6.

10. Miracle involving penitents. Detail of Fig. 6.

31


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chapter two

11. Master of Cross 434, panel with 8 stories from the life and miracles of St Francis, ca. 1250. Museo Civico, Pistoia.



12. Cure of a cripple and a leper. Detail of Fig. 11.

13. Exorcism. Detail of Fig. 11.

31

60

14. Giunta Pisano or a follower, panel with 4 miracles of St Francis, ca. 1253. Museo del Tesoro, San Francesco, Assisi.

[Ahlquist and Cook] [Cooper]

chapter two



15. Cure of the crippled girl. Detail of Fig. 14.

16. Cure of cripple and leper. Detail of Fig. 14.

31


60

chapter two




31

18. Follower of Giunta Pisano, panel with 6 miracles of St Francis, ca. 1255. Pinacoteca Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa.


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chapter two

19. Cure of the crippled girl. Detail of Fig. 18.

20. The woman who refused to celebrate St Francis’ feast day. Detail of Fig. 18.



21. The woman who refused to celebrate St Francis’ feast day. Detail of Fig. 20.

31


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chapter two

22. The cure of the woman with a goiter. Detail of Fig. 18.




31

24. Follower of Giunta Pisano, Cure of Bartholomew of Narni. Detail of panel with 4 miracles of St Francis, ca. 1255. Vatican Museum, Rome.

25. Master of the St John the Baptist Paliotto, The reconciliation of a heretic with the Church. Detail of panel with 4 stories of the life and miracles of St Francis, ca. 1260. Museo Diocesano, Orte.

[Cooper] [Thompson]

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chapter two

1. Plan of Santa Croce, Florence, with transept chapels marked.

[Thompson] [Cooper]


31

2. View of the high altar of Santa Croce, Florence. Note the Bardi chapel at the lower right , the Bardi St. Francis window above Giotto’s Stigmatization, and the Tolosini window on the other side of the high altar from the Bardi St. Francis window. (Photo: Art Resource)

[Cooper] [Thompson]

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chapter two

3. St. Francis and St. Anthony with Popes. Top of Bardi St. Francis window, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: author)

[Thompson] [Cooper]


4. St. Anthony and St. Louis of Toulouse with Popes. Bottom of St. Francis window, Santa Croce, Florence (note that St. Anthony is in both figures 3 and 4). (Photo: author)

31

[Cooper] [Thompson]

60

chapter two

5. Approval of the Franciscan Rule, Upper Church, Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi. (Photo: Art Resource)


6. Giotto, Approval of the Franciscan Rule, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: Art Resource)

[Thompson] [Cooper]

31

60

7. Giotto, Renunciation of the Worldly Goods, Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: Art Resource)

[Thompson] [Cooper]

chapter two

[Thompson] [Cooper]


31

8. View into Bardi St. Louis chapel, Santa Croce, Florence, with view of north window. (Photo: author)

[Cooper] [Thompson]

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chapter two

9. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Boniface VIII Receiving St. Louis as a Franciscan Novice, San Francesco, Siena. (Photo: Art Resource)


10. Bardi St. Louis west window, Louis of Toulouse and Louis of France, Santa Croce, Florence, detail of Fig. 11. (Photo: author)

[Thompson] [Cooper]

31

[Cooper] [Thompson]

60

chapter two

11. Bardi St. Louis west window, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: author)


12. Louis of France and Louis of Toulouse, top of Bardi St. Louis north window, Santa Croce, Florence. (Photo: author)

[Thompson] [Cooper]

31

The Art of the Franciscan Order in Italy

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Food of Italy

Order in the Universe

The Order of Terror

The Order of Wolves

The Order of Melchizedek

The Art of Eating In

The Order of Shaddai

The Art of Eating In

The Order of the Scales

The Order of the Scales

The Order of the Scales

The Order of Chivalry

The Order of Discourse

The Art of Eating In

The Art of Eating In

The Order of Things

The Order of Terror

Studies in the Romanization of Italy

The Politics of Mental Health in Italy

The Exultet in Southern Italy

The Exultet in Southern Italy

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Society of Norman Italy

Creating Clare of Assisi: Female Franciscan Identities in Later Medieval Italy

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of the Franciscan Order in Italy

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Food of Italy

Order in the Universe

The Order of Terror

The Order of Wolves

The Order of Melchizedek

The Art of Eating In

The Order of Shaddai

The Art of Eating In

The Order of the Scales

The Order of the Scales

The Order of the Scales

The Order of Chivalry

The Order of Discourse

The Art of Eating In

The Art of Eating In

The Order of Things

The Order of Terror

Studies in the Romanization of Italy

The Politics of Mental Health in Italy

The Exultet in Southern Italy

The Exultet in Southern Italy

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Society of Norman Italy

Creating Clare of Assisi: Female Franciscan Identities in Later Medieval Italy

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain

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