Piero di Gualterotto Bardi was related to the powerful Bardi banking family that commissioned Giotto to create the frescos for a chapel adjacent to the central Cappella Maggiore. Twenty years later, he appears to have initiated an intricate project to decorate one of two burial chapels situated perpendicularly at the northern end of Santa Croce’s transept that members of the Bardi family claimed. Rights to the Bardi di Vernio Chapel appear to have been purchased from the Franciscans in 1335, and the decorations inside it were probably commissioned and completed by Piero di Gualterotto’s exile in 1340.
The Bardi di Vernio chapel was one of sixteen prestigious burial spaces in Santa Croce owned and maintained by the city’s wealthiest and most privileged lineages. Still, the location of the Bardi di Vernio Chapel, which was well removed from the high altar in the Cappella Maggiore and obscured from the view of most visitors to the church, reduced its prominence in the Franciscan basilica, particularly in the 14th century, when a large
hindered access to the crossing.
The images inside the chapel created a thematic program that emphasized the value and wisdom of personal devotion. The program included the creation of two tombs, and one bears images of the
and standing mourners by an unknown sculptor. These tombs were adorned with painted lunettes of
The walls above and across from them feature frescoes dedicated to the lives of
These paintings have been connected to two of Giotto’s most gifted followers: Maso di Banco and Taddeo Gaddi. While poorly documented, scholars attribute all the wall frescos and
above the first tomb on the north wall to Maso di Banco. Taddeo Gaddi is the better-known painter responsible for the
above the second tomb. Both images feature donors – one male and the other female – who rise up above the actual tombs embedded into the chapel’s walls in acts of prayer.
These tombs and lunettes connect with the frescoes above and before them. Each features images of the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, and recounts his journey of conversion and his determination as a freshly baptized member of the faith. Although Pope Sylvester, his confessor, retains a dominant presence on the three tiers of paintings that decorate the south wall, his presence must be understood as more of a supporting role to the real subject of the cycle: Constantine the Great and the rewards awaiting potentates and other people of means who dedicate themselves to the Christian faith. The Bardi di Vernio family, one of the wealthiest and most powerful of Florence’s oligarchic class, surely placed themselves in this select company for the brief period their star ascended.
The Bardi di Vernio Chapel was rendered with an eye toward connectivity. Adjacent to the space but oriented perpendicularly to it stands yet another chapel maintained by the Bardi Chapel in the north transept. Both spaces feature a carved tomb encased within a tri-lobed pinnacle supported by twisting colonnettes that face approaching viewers – and both of them flank the Bardi Chapel at the end of the crossing to form a pair of sarcophagal bookends to the area. The appearance of the
in bas-relief on both of them, coupled with the white marble of the trapezoidal capped tomb, links them formally and iconographically. The tomb at the mouth of the Bardi di Vernio chapel serves a dual role as both a continuation of the neighboring Bardi Chapel in the north end of the transept and as an introduction to the other one, and it, therefore, simultaneously connects the two spaces and, conversely, articulates a division between them.
By Sofia Yasin
Bibliography:
Turner, Jane, ed. The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 20. New York: Grove, 1996.
White, John, and Nikolaus Pevsner.
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
Zirpolo, Lilian H.
Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: -28.55, 107.47, 1.81
Camera Location: -25.065, 107.536, 1.890
Camera Looks Towards: -52.938, 108.914, 10.270
Annotation block name:
Occupying the central wall of the northeast Bardi di Vernio Chapel, the frescoes of
The Last Judgment and
Entombment of Christ set the tone for the entirety of the sacred space, reminding the viewer that it is not only a place of worship but also a place of rest. Perhaps to expedite completion, the two paintings appear to have been produced simultaneously by different painters, Maso di Banco and Taddeo Gaddi, who were both directly descended from the workshop of Giotto di Bondone, author of the frescoes of St. Francis that adorned the Bardi Chapel near the crossing of the church. The Franciscans in Santa Croce and their patrons favored this group of painters throughout the fourteenth century.
The first of these paintings addresses viewers from the room’s mouth as they approach the space. Playing upon themes of divinity, mortality, and mercy,
The Last Judgment illustrates the interaction between Heaven and earth, Christ and a Christian. Emerging physically from the tomb appears a half-length image of a praying figure, perhaps a reference to the Bardi di Vernio interred in the sarcophagus there. The figure, positioned just left of the center, lifts his head toward the image of the Enthroned Christ, who sits in a blue mandorla, or almond-shaped, frame and gestures toward the instruments of his torture and execution, held mournfully by floating angels, with both of his wounded hands. Craggy rocks jut upwards from the earth toward the heavenly realm while two horns, blown together by angels with foreshortened heads to signal the End of Days, descend from the sky toward the ground. These avenues of connectivity suggest passageways between the two zones, accessible to living supplicants only through true piety and sincere prayer, the attitude of which is modeled by the lone devotee who takes flight from his tomb along these paths.
Importantly, the painter of this fresco, probably Maso di Banco, understood precisely the impact his image would have. The scene can be seen not from inside the chapel, which would have been accessible only to friars and, probably male, Bardi di Vernio family members, but rather from an oblique angle all viewers have from the transept floor. This skewed vantage point, combined with the three-dimensional marble tomb that juts away from the wall, permitted Maso to place his donor in such a way as to make it appear that he was up out of the very center of the sarcophagus below him, even though the figure’s actual position just to Christ’s right corresponds precisely to rigid traditional norms of representation to which all painters in the fourteenth century conformed.
Taddeo Gaddi borrowed these compositional and thematic motifs when conceiving the
Entombment of Christ to the right. However, the emphasis was placed on female spirituality and the promises of salvation women demanded from their faith. The perpendicular cross that bisects the picture underscores the same vertical axis that drove Maso’s
The Last Judgment composition. However, now the diagonals created by Nicodemus’ ladder and the inclined torso of Christ, held up by the wealthy tomb-owner Joseph of Arimathea, replicate the upward thrust from earth to Heaven seen in the first fresco. This diagonal confirms the viewer’s suspicion that the pathway to Heaven has been trod once before. Both directional cues appear to the composition’s right, away from the viewer, who understands them from the oblique angle at the chapel’s mouth as extensions that move beyond the picture’s frame.
Now, the scene takes on a different, gendered slant. The painting’s core features the women in the story, with male characters shunted off to the composition’s edges. Mary Magdalene recoils from the dead body before her while two other “Marys” lean forward to anoint the corpse’s body. The Virgin Mary embraces her son and bends her forehead down so that it touches that of Christ. They mourn his death with an emotional display that never applied to male disciples’ features. As if to underscore the centrality of the female experience, Taddeo places a half-length praying donatrix in the central panel of the fictive polychromed tomb into which Christ is here being lowered and from which he will ascend only a few hours later. Painted directly above the actual marble tomb in the chapel, this seems to signify its occupancy by a Bardi di Vernio family woman. Indeed, both sexes appear to have been interred in this chapel, apparently in adjacent tombs, and thus, both sexes enjoy promises of direct contact with Christ through these representations of Bardi di Vernio supplicants. However, the actual tomb slab below the lunette, although also made of expensive marble, contains no sculptural adornment, perhaps alerting us to the decorative distinctions between sarcophagi made for wealthy men and those made for wealthy women: both were granted access to the burial chapel. Both were promised eternal salvation, but only one enjoyed the distinction of fully formed representational sculpture on the tombs where they awaited their departure to Heaven.
By Sofia Yasin and George Bent
Bibliography:
Brilliant, Virginia. "Envisaging the Particular Judgment in Late-Medieval Italy." Speculum 84, no. 2, 2009.
Turner, Jane, ed. The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 20. New York: Grove, 1996.
White, John, and Nikolaus Pevsner.
The Pelican History of Art. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
Zirpolo, Lilian H.
Historical Dictionary of Renaissance Art. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: -24.90, 104.96, 5.02
Camera Location: -29.069, 107.045, 1.883
Camera Looks Towards: -0.983, 106.538, 21.900
Annotation block name:
The Life of Constantine
Annotation Details:
No archival evidence directly connects Maso di Banco to the frescoes in the Bardi di Vernio Chapel, and no document records the period in which the images inside the burial space were executed. The date of 1335, when the family’s feudal title as vicars of Vernio was bestowed upon them by Emperor Charles IV and, not coincidentally, when Piero di Gualterotto Bardi purchased the rights to the chapel in S. Croce, is often considered the
terminus post quem for the decorations inside the space. Piero’s subsequent exile from Florence in November 1340 marks a legitimate
terminus ante quem. In 1341, Rodolfo di Bardi, Piero’s cousin, sequestered Maso di Banco’s materials and unfinished paintings for unknown reasons, perhaps as security to leverage repayment of debts. The personal connection between Maso and the Bardi, no matter its hostility, lends credence to the traditional assignment of the frescoes in the Bardi di Vernio chapel to this follower of Giotto.
The frescoes that descend from the tops of the north and south walls, as well as the image that once decorated the ruined lunette on the west wall surrounding the stained-glass window, focus on the linked hagiographies of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor, and St. Sylvester. He was the Pope credited with converting Constantine during the 320s before the Emperor’s deathbed baptism in Constantinople in 337. The artist and his patrons may have observed the millennial anniversary before turning their attention to this cycle in the chapel. Usually identified by title as
Scenes from the Life of St. Sylvester, the narrative sequence focuses more on
Scenes from the Life of Emperor Constantine the Great with an emphasis on his spiritual journey and conversion from paganism to Christianity. While not unheard of, the selection of this subject matter was highly uncommon in Florence at this time. Perhaps the Bardi’s status in the 1330s as the bankers to both popes and kings inspired the choice to honor Constantine and Sylvester jointly. At the same time, the privileges granted to Piero di Gualterotto Bardi by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1335 may have driven the decision to feature and identify with an Imperial protagonist. Further research may reveal other motivations behind its selection by the Bardi di Vernio family, as well as the pictorial choices made by the artist responsible for their creation.
The cycle begins at the top register of the north wall, above the two tombs that face viewers as they approach the chapel. There appears the rarely depicted scene of
Constantine Refusing to Bathe in the Blood of Innocents, in which the Emperor eschews the traditional method of curing leprosy by refusing to submerge himself in a barrel of blood collected from prisoners’ veins. Below, the vertically oriented scene of Peter and Paul, patron saints of Rome, appears before Constantine in a dream to inform him that the cure to his leprosy may be found instead of in conversion to Christianity. The images on this wall, placed directly above
The Last Judgment and
Entombment, speak to the challenges Constantine faced during his misguided youth as a pagan adherent and his gradual realization of an alternative available to him.
The frescoes on the south wall have weathered the elements quite well, although the surfaces of all three paintings have been heavily repainted over the centuries. Now, the relationship between Church and State comes into high focus. The top scene moves from left to right. It shows Pope Sylvester’s appeal to Constantine and then the Emperor’s historically inaccurate baptism in Rome at the hand of his papal confessor. The middle scene depicts yet another uncommon scene in the history of Florentine art:
The Miracle of the Bull, whereby Sylvester revives a bull killed during a contest with a magician, which in turn convinces the enthroned Constantine and Helena, his mother, that they were wise to convert to the magically powerful Christian faith. Moreover, in the most famous fresco of the chapel, and one of the better-known images of the post-Giotto Trecento, the representation of Sylvester quelling the murderously bad breath of a dragon, symbolizing pagan culture that killed two disbelieving Romans in the city’s forum is combined in this continuous narrative with the image of the Pope turning entirely around to revive said victims. A remarkably non-plussed crowd witnesses this miracle: one of them, Emperor Constantine, recognizes the wisdom of his conversion. Although St. Sylvester receives important and favorable consideration on the south wall, the entire cycle was instead a narrative recounting the spiritual journey of the first Christian Emperor, and to him must go the program’s title.
The now-missing image framing the stained-glass window retains in the lower right two horses’ heads surrounded by a rocky landscape, suggesting that this central wall may have originally contained the narrative of the
Dream of Constantine or the
Battle at the Milvian Bridge. This legend, one of the most persistent of European Christendom and the seminal moment in the life of the first Christian Emperor, revolved around Constantine’s premonition that his adherence to Christ’s mission would lead him to victory against Maxentius at the battle by the banks of the Tiber in October 312. This vision ultimately led to his legalization of Christianity the following spring, his support of the Church hierarchy and Sylvester, and his official baptism on his deathbed in 337. Omitting the all-important scene of the
Dream of Constantine or the
Battle at the Milvian Bridge from this cycle would have been an odd choice. While we cannot say with certainty that one or both of these scenes bridged the gap between the north and south walls of the chapel, it stands to reason that Maso would have included at least one of them at this central juncture in his cycle.
By Sofia Yasin and George Bent
Bibliography:
Bartalini, Roberto. “Maso, la cronologia della cappella Bardi di Vernio e il giovane Orcagna,” Prospettiva (1995), 16-35.
De Voragine, Jacobus.
The Golden Legend. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Pr., 1993.
Turner, Jane, ed. The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 20. New York: Grove, 1996.
White, John, and Nikolaus Pevsner.
The Pelican History of Art. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 4.72, -2.60, 1.47
Camera Location: 0.381, -12.660, 0.825
Camera Looks Towards: 1.066, 37.516, 16.499
Annotation block name: The Architecture of Santa Croce in its Context
Annotation Details:
When constructing Santa Croce, the Franciscans echoed the designs of their mother church, San Francesco in Assisi. The general architectural plan of the nave and transept in Santa Croce served the Franciscans as a base for when they preached St. Francis’ mission and aimed to expand their footprint in the city.
The church outline follows a Tau cross, symbolizing the Egyptian Cross of the Franciscan Order. Unlike the floor plan of other gothic churches of the same period, the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Croce does not extend out very far from the transept wall, creating the T-shape of the church. The scale of Santa Croce far exceeds that of the Santa Maria Novella, which was constructed by the Dominicans just a bit earlier. The nave runs 115 meters long and 38.32 meters wide, and the transept spans 73.73 meters wide.
Due to the wide nave, the construction of the roof required structural support from intricate Romanesque wooden trusses instead of the typical gothic cross vaults that were only sufficient for narrow structures. The wooden roof also complied with the rules suggesting simple church constructions established by the Narbonne chapter in 1260. The width, on the one hand, fulfilled the Franciscan’s competitive goal of surpassing the Dominican’s Santa Maria Novella, but it also accommodated the growing population that swarmed inside the church to hear the friars preach.
As the main congregation space, the nave provided structures that assisted preaching and devotional practices. The pulpit on the third pier of the central nave from the south of the church served as a podium for preachers to deliver sermons as they addressed the laity. Separated by octagonal piers and pointed arches, the side aisles and nave formed a paralleled structure, which referred to the parallelism between Jesus and St. Francis that was important to the Franciscan’s preaching. The excavations following the flood of 1966 led Marcia Hall to argue for the existence of an independent
tramezzo, that separated the choir space and Cappella Maggiore from the rest of the nave and subsequently divided the clergy and friars from the laity.
The transept, located behind the
tramezzo, provided an exclusive space for the burial chapels of prestigious families, who decorated them with sumptuous frescoes. Five family chapels, including those of the Bardi, Perruzi, Riccardi, and Velluti chapels to the east, and Pulci Beraldi and Bardi di Vernio chapel to the west, flank the Cappella Maggiore in the transept. The Niccolini and Bardi di Magona chapel to the north and the Castellani and Baroncelli chapels at the south end occupy the two extremes of the transept. These families traded funding for the right to be commemorated inside one of the most influential churches in all of Europe. Reciprocally, the church profited from these donations and the artistic commissions they funded, which helped the church develop into an even more prestigious cultural and religious site.
By Reggie Zhao
Bibliography:
Debby, Nirit Ben-Aryeh. "The Santa Croce Pulpit in Context: Sermons, Art and Space."
Artibus Et Historiae 29, no. 57 (2008): 75-93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20067182.
Hall, Marcia B. "The Tramezzo in Santa Croce, Florence, Reconstructed."
The Art Bulletin 56, no. 3 (1974): 325-41. doi:10.2307/3049260.
Tolan, John. "Mendicants and Muslims in Dante's Florence."
Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 125 (2007): 227-48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40350666.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 4.80, -2.40, 1.20
Camera Location: 0.381, -12.660, 0.825
Camera Looks Towards: 1.066, 37.516, 16.499
Annotation block name: The Origin of Santa Croce
Annotation Details:
Santa Croce’s origins date back to the Franciscan order’s founder St. Francis of Assisi: the most venerated saint in 13th-century Europe. Around 1210, St. Francis sent two friars to Florence to proselytize and preach his message. Together, they established the Franciscan community in the city, creating a small convent in Santa Gallo. St. Francis then came to Florence in 1214 to meet Cardinal Ugolino, the protector of the order and the future Pope Gregory IX, who soon granted them their autocracy from the Bishop of Florence. To enhance their preaching practice and influence, the Franciscans moved to a more central location in the city by the Arno River in 1221 and thus, established what would become the primary site for Santa Croce.
The early church on this site only served the Friars’ basic needs for sleeping and religious education. Preaching sessions took place on the street corners and
piazze of the city, and friars depended on alms from their audiences for their other needs. After Francis’ death in 1226, the Pope helped his followers recover from the loss by loosening the strictness of the rule that mandated a humble life and prohibited Franciscan communities from possessing property. The Pope claimed that the entire Church was his property, and therefore, he had the authority to gift the Franciscans anything and everything he (and they) wanted, which included properties, funding, and devotional objects. Pope Innocent IV continued to support the Franciscans after Gregory’s death in 1241 by giving indulgences to those who donated to institutions like Santa Croce. The Franciscans were able accumulate funds they needed for church development and expansion.
By 1254, growing in power and authority with the papal assistance, the Franciscans were outperforming the rival Dominicans and occupied key positions as bishops, inquisitors, and legates, both in and out of Florence. As a result, members of the Florentine elite gravitated toward Santa Croce to claim burial spaces inside it, and soon the availability of these tombs and chapels evaporated. The demand for a larger space for preaching, gathering, and private commissions pushed the Franciscans to expand S. Croce. Their competition with the Dominicans on the other side of the city spurred them to make a new church that was more sumptuous than Santa Maria Novella (initiated in 1279).
Along with additional funds from prominent families and lay donations, the Florentine commune endowed 1200 florins to launch construction. On May 3rd, 1294, the Day of the Holy Cross, Arnolfo di Cambio (generally considered as the architect for S. Croce) laid the first stone in place. Other architects assumed the project after Arnolfo’s death in the early 1300s, and the nave was expanded over the course of that century and reached completion in the 1380s.
By Reggie Zhao
Bibliography:
Moorman, John R. H. (John Richard Humpidge).
A History of the Franciscan Order from Its Origins to the Year 1517. Oxford: Clarendon P., 1968.
Thompson, Nancy M. "The Franciscans and the True Cross: The Decoration of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Croce in Florence." Gesta 43, no. 1 (2004): 61-79.
Tolan, John. "Mendicants and Muslims in Dante's Florence."
Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, no. 125 (2007): 227-48.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 23.02, 90.53, 1.20
Camera Location: 26.465, 99.946, 1.205
Camera Looks Towards: 25.927, 93.015, 3.721
Annotation block name: Origin and Patronage – Castellani Chapel
Annotation Details:
The growing wealth and status of the Castellani family guaranteed them an “exceptional chapel” in Santa Croce alongside the burial spaces of other prominent Florentine families, such as the Bardi, the Baroncelli, and the Peruzzi. Acting as patrons for this chapel was a way to showcase the family’s wealth, social status, and political power. Because of the location of these in the transept – separated from the nave by a large
tramezzo that cut the church into two until the middle of the sixteenth century – these chapels were intended to be seen and used for only a select few, among whom were members of the elite families who owned rights to these burial spaces.
With construction starting in 1383, the Castellani paid for the erection of a double-bayed, fresco-covered structure, dedicated to Saint Anthony Abbot, that was larger and at a higher elevation than the standard chapel in Santa Croce. These two factors helped to distinguish the chapel as a superior worship space in the basilica. The Castellani showcased their privilege and power by including the family crest on interior and exterior keystones of the chapel, along with two additional shields. The fresco program of the chapel showcases scenes from the lives of Saints John the Evangelist, Anthony, John the Baptist, and Nicholas, with a full wall space dedicated to scenes from each figure’s hagiographic biography. Three different artists are thought to have worked on these different evangelist scenes, with two of them being unknown and the other being Agnolo Gaddi.
The Castellani family could not retain rights to the chapel forever, however, and the falling fortunes of the clan after the death of its head, Francesco di messer Mateo di Michele, forced them to surrender it in 1494 to the Compagnia delle Pinzochere. This group of lay women, tertiaries affiliated with the Franciscan friars in S. Croce, took over the use and maintenance of the space, which they re-dedicated to the celebration of the Holy Sacrament – the celebration for which the chapel is currently named.
By Audrey Overholt and George Bent
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 30.38, 77.85, 4.06
Camera Location: 21.741, 83.720, 1.856
Camera Looks Towards: 27.976, 83.604, 5.826
Annotation block name:
St. John the Evangelist Fresco Program
Annotation Details:
The left wall of the Castellani chapel contains a fresco cycle of Saint John the Evangelist’s life. The scenes are taken directly from the thirteenth-century
Golden Legend written by Jacobus Voragine. The writing revolves around the John the Evangelist’s work in Ephesus as a missionary. The Castellani chapel is the first time Voragine’s story appear in Italian art, demonstrating the ingenuity and originality of Agnolo Gaddi’s art. Since the chapel was the first to showcase St. John the Evangelist’s own fresco program, his imagery would not have been as recognizable to viewers as other saints in the chapel.
The top lunette, titled the
Vision of the Apocalypse, shows a sleeping Evangelist surrounded by eight symbolic figures in the sky. The saint sleeps on the island of Patmos and the figures above represent his dream about the Apocalypse. Four angels represent the four corners of the earth, who welcome the “angel of the sixth seal,” thought to be Saint Francis. A female figure, regarded as the “Woman of the Apocalypse,” sits with her son and asserts an authoritative presence. The artist seems to have taken cues from Giotto and has composed the Apocalypse scene almost identically to his one in the nearby Peruzzi chapel.
In the second register of the left wall appears scenes of Crato and his posse giving up worldly possessions and donating their money to the poor due to influence from John the Evangelist, who shows these new Christians that humility is essential to faith. The third register depicts the baptism of Crato as the Evangelist blesses sticks and stones which he will soon turn to gold. A unique composition is presented here, as no architectural or physical barrier divide the scenes. Here, the figures flow directly across the space, but the postures and direction of the people distinguish the two distinct moments. The artist emphasizes figures to the point where the architectural features aren’t even relevant, serving no structural function and only sitting as a backdrop. The distinction suggests that the artist for John the Evangelist scenes must be different from the artist of the Saint Nicholas scenes, as the latter artist relies heavily on architecture to divide space.
By Audrey Overholt
Bibliography:
Cole, Bruce M. “Agnolo Gaddi.”
Bryn Mawr College, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1969, pp. 15–37.
ProQuest Ebook Central.
Roberts, Perri Lee. “Familial Values and Franciscan Polemics in Late Trecento Florence: The Iconographic Program of the Castellani Chapel in Sta. Croce.”
Gesta, vol. 48, no. 1, 2009, pp. 87–115., doi:10.2307/29764897.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 20.83, 86.50, 3.06
Camera Location: 27.378, 83.247, 1.477
Camera Looks Towards: 21.083, 83.171, 5.351
Annotation block name:
Saint Nicholas Frescos
Annotation Details:
The fresco program in the Castellani chapel spans four walls that cover two bays, with one entire section dedicated to the life and works of Saint Nicholas. Known as the “Wonder Worker,” Saint Nicholas miraculously healed the sick, assisted the poor, and helped those in need of advocacy. Painted in the 1380s by an unknown artist, all of these elements are showcased in the fresco program on the right side of the northeast wall of the Castellani chapel.
The top scene depicts Saint Nicholas throwing gold into a room where an elderly man and his three daughters sit. Nicholas was thought to have been born into a wealthy family but wanted to use his inheritance to help others. In this scene, he anonymously gives gold so the poor man can pay a dowry to marry his daughters off instead of selling them into prostitution. Other chapels have replicated this particular scene, but usually with the old man asleep. The image in the Castellani Chapel depicts the man awake, and thus able to witness Nicholas’ miraculous intervention.
The frescoes below the top lunette display three different scenes compartmentalized by adjacent buildings. Reading from right to left, the first scene shows a Jewish man lending money to a Christian. The middle image presents the two figures in the presence of a robed judge, who hears the petition of the impoverished Christian man who cannot pay back the Jewish man the money. The final scene displays the Christian being run over by a cart, the Jew praying to Saint Nicholas for the debtor’s revival, and the moneylender stating that if the debtor is revived, he will convert to Christianity. The artist paints the Jewish man in the light to emphasize his morality and selflessness as well as imply that his prayers will be answered.
The bottom scene tells the story of a man who prays to Saint Nicholas for a son and, in return, promises to make an offering of a gold cup at the saint’s grave. When Nicholas answers his prayers and delivers a son to the man and his wife, the petitioner goes back on his promise and keeps the cup. As a consequence, the son nearly drowns, only to be saved by Saint Nicholas, who then returns the boy to his deceitful father. Like the fresco above, the artist compartmentalizes the different scenes of the story, this time using a boat and a building to separate the different elements of the narrative.
By Audrey Overholt
Bibliography:
Cole, Bruce M. “Agnolo Gaddi.”
Bryn Mawr College, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1969, pp. 15–37.
ProQuest Ebook Central.
Roberts, Perri Lee. “Familial Values and Franciscan Polemics in Late Trecento Florence: The Iconographic Program of the Castellani Chapel in Sta. Croce.”
Gesta, vol. 48, no. 1, 2009, pp. 87–115., doi:10.2307/29764897.
“The Life of St. Nicholas, The Wonder Worker.”
Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church , stnicholas-man-nh.org.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 20.83, 82.35, 3.07
Camera Location: 27.378, 83.247, 1.477
Camera Looks Towards: 21.083, 83.171, 5.351
Annotation block name:
Fresco Cycle of Saint John the Baptist
Annotation Details:
The right wall of the Castellani Chapel contains a fresco program dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. As the patron saint of Florence, John the Baptist was celebrated all across the city and his narrative scenes would be familiar images for Florentines.
The top lunette of this fresco program, titled the
Annunciation to Zacharias, shows an angel appearing to Zacharias while he carries out a religious service. The angel moves forward through the scene as though he’s extending the blessing into the center space. Meanwhile, a host of observers watch the angel from outside the temple.
The middle register shows John baptizing figures, with a group of young men on his left and Christ on his right. These two baptisms were, according to the Gospels, originally performed on separate occasions, but the artist here chose to group them together for the sake of brevity and clarity. This grouping also shows that an effort was made by the artist to emphasize the humanity of Christ, as he shares the space with normal humans during this sacred ritual.
In the 17th century, the walls of the Castellani Chapel were whitewashed, but a 1859-1860 partial restoration and a 1921-1922 comprehensive removal of whitewash restored the chapel to its previous late 14th century state. The whitewash, however, left the bottom register damaged, meaning that the subject matter of the scenes cannot be deeply explored. The left side illustrates Christ preaching with his disciples, as well as the finger of John the Baptist presumably preaching from underneath a large, porch-like structure. The right side of the bottom register displays an older John the Baptist going into the wilderness to preach with his back turned, helping emphasize his departure from civilization.
The scenes of John the Baptist in the Castellani chapel show that a second hand was at work in the space. Even though traces of work by the first artist – the painter of the neighboring Saint Nicholas program – appear throughout the chapel, we can see that he was not in charge of the whole program, for some figures produced by the 2nd painter are much taller and have more delicate features than those of the 1st. The 2nd artist also structures spaces differently from the 1st, constructing emptier scenes with a reduced emphasis on architecture. The figures in these scenes are detached from the space around them and stand alone, much more so than figures in the Saint Nicholas frescos. Thus, the 2nd painter was at play in the fresco cycle of John the Baptist.
By Audrey Overholt
Bibliography:
Cole , Bruce M. “Agnolo Gaddi.”
Bryn Mawr College, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1969, pp. 15–37.
Roberts, Perri Lee. “Familial Values and Franciscan Polemics in Late Trecento Florence: The Iconographic Program of the Castellani Chapel in Sta. Croce.”
Gesta, vol. 48, no. 1, 2009, pp. 78–115.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 34.97, 99.68, 2.22
Camera Location: 33.642, 90.928, 2.587
Camera Looks Towards: 36.078, 124.072, 11.824
Annotation block name: The Life of the Virgin Mary Frescos
Annotation Details:
The fresco program of
The Life of the Virgin Mary occupies the left wall of the Baroncelli Chapel. Executed by Taddeo Gaddi between 1328 and 1330, the set of narrative paintings is considered the masterpiece of Taddeo's youth.
The east wall consists of five larger frescos that depict the Virgin Mary's youth and the lives of her parents, Anna and Joachim. In painting this storyline, Taddeo gives an ancestry of the person to which the Baroncelli Chapel is dedicated and, in doing so, summons her presence. Set inside a large lunette, the first scene depicts Joachim being driven away from the temple. This is followed by four successive moments in smaller square spaces:
The Meeting of Anna and Joachim, The Birth of the Madonna, The Madonna on the Steps of the Temple, and
the Marriage of the Virgin. Exiled into the wilderness, he sits on a rock and meets the angel Gabriel, who blesses him with the announcement that his wife, Anna, will deliver a daughter in her old age. The story continues below with the image of
The Meeting at the Golden Gate, a composition borrowed from Taddeo's master, Giotto di Bondone. Here, the couple embraces at the city gate after Joachim's return, a gesture provoked by Gabriel's news. The two figures sit at the scene's center, golden halos and pastel robes emphasizing their role as main characters. From the left, a shepherd strides towards them and a group of handmaidens watch at the right, with the city of Jerusalem looming behind them.
To the right of this scene appears
The Birth of the Virgin, which introduces Mary into the storyline. Once again, figures are placed at an angle to help give life to the scene, as do the realistically rendered draperies of the handmaidens' robes that fall off their bent knees. Now obscured by the damaged wall, Anna reclines on the bed while her infant daughter, Mary, receives her first bath below her. The story then moves along into the
The Presentation of the Virgin scene at the bottom right. Here, Mary's parents take her to the temple and then leave her there to be raised as a maiden; she is to dedicate her life in service to the Lord. Taddeo arranges the architectural framework of this scene to create a pictorial depth: the stairs leading into the middle ground, along with the arcades along the upper registers of the buildings, form a spatial box that suggests a stage. Taddeo's figures interact within this space, sitting on different levels and sizes to underscore the distances between them.
The final scene of
The Betrothal of the Virgin shows the competition among Mary's suitors for her hand and Joseph's surprising victory. Mary stands to the right of the competition before a tapestry hung on the arcade of a loggia. Taddeo depicts a tradition here: that woven fabrics frame the seat in which a bride sits. The aged Joseph, left alone by the death of his first wife and too old to procreate with a young one, leans toward her in the middle of the crowd. The rod held by these elderly widower flowers above his head – the symbol of his selection as Mary's groom – causes his younger rivals to break the branches they hoped would blossom, thus signifying their appointment as her husband. The layering of figures in the crowd creates a vibrant, even chaotic scene as the entire city witnesses this odd occurrence.
By Audrey Overholt and Julia Brinker
Bibliography:
Gardner, Julian. "The Decoration of the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce."
Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 34, no. 2, 1971, p. 89.
Janson- La Palme, Robert JH. "Taddeo Gaddi's Baroncelli Chapel: Studies in Design and Content. (Volume I: Text. Volume II: Illustrations)."
Princeton University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1976.
"Joachim and Anna."
Proclus of Constantinople - OrthodoxWiki, OrthodoxWiki, 14 Jan. 2018, orthodoxwiki.org/Joachim_and_Anna.
"Taddeo Gaddi (1300-1366)."
Century Illustrated Magazine, Mar. 1889, p. 670.
"Taddeo Gaddi."
The Dictionary of Art, Edited by Jane Turner, vol. 11, Macmillan Publishers, 1996, pp. 888–890.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 30.26, 99.73, 2.24
Camera Location: 33.642, 90.928, 2.587
Camera Looks Towards: 36.078, 124.072, 11.824
Annotation block name: Architectural Themes in the Life of the Virgin
Annotation Details:
These frescoes show Taddeo’s ability to play with space and set up characters in believable scenes. More specifically, each vignette references a specific, recognizable architectural context that resembles the form of the Baroncelli Chapel, which the frescoes occupy.
This connection to architecture is seen in all five frescoes of the east wall but is most impressive in *The Presentation of the Virgin*. The backdrop for this scene showcases Taddeo’s ability to construct real space. The temple at the top has ribbed vaulting and a sort of clerestory, all in a medieval style termed the Italian Gothic. The slender pillars, stacked platforms, and repeated arches have been intertwined into the ancient storyline of the paintings to connect the account of Mary’s life to contemporary Florence. This motif is consistent throughout the Chapel and helps connect the stories into a cohesive unit.
Taddeo continues playing with architecture in his frescoes by using the way he frames his paintings. Spiral pillars run up the middle and the sides, blending with the actual structure of the chapel to help integrate the frescoes with their setting. Corinthian accents at the top help with the illusion, as does Taddeo’s shading of the pillars that show attention to the light source. A set of decorative bands is also sitting at the tops of the frescoes, which are painted as a base between the upper and lower spiral columns. These bands mimic the decoration of the ribbed vaulting, further integrating the frescoes into the chapel.
By Audrey Overholt
Bibliography:
Ladis, Andrew.
Taddeo Gaddi. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1981.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 34.15, 95.01, 1.84
Camera Location: 30.775, 96.140, 3.323
Camera Looks Towards: 64.798, 95.118, -2.256
Annotation block name: The Coronation of the Virgin – Background
Annotation Details:
The Coronation of the Virgin, also known as the
Baroncelli Pentaptych, is the central altarpiece of the Baroncelli chapel and forms the backdrop to the ceremonial Eucharistic table. Although Taddeo Gaddi is credited as the main artist of the frescoes in the Baroncelli Chapel, his hand is not present in the Coronation.
Giotto, or maybe his workshop, painted the altarpiece sometime around 1330 when the chapel's frescoes were completed. It bears close similarities with a double-sided altarpiece commissioned by Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi and produced for the Basilica of Old St. Peter's in Rome, thus suggesting that the same painter was responsible for both pictures. The artist signed his name on the inscription with the words,
"OPUS MAGISTRI JOCTI." It must be noted, however, that it was not uncommon for a master painter's name to be added deceptively to a work of art. It would be the workshop assistants who did the work, but the master had the name. Thus, the appearance of Giotto's name on the panel may not guarantee his participation in the Coronation.
The scene of the Coronation can stand independently, but it also fits with the rest of the chapel. Giotto, probably working in collaboration with his former student, Taddeo Gaddi, made an effort to incorporate all five panels into the fresco program in the rest of the chapel and the stained-glass window above. This can be seen in the consistency of the color palette, the scenes' overall brightness, and the figures' unity.
The Coronation of the Virgin appears on the altarpiece, completing the Life of the Virgin Mary program in the Baroncelli Chapel. Its position here, rather than in a fresco, emphasizes the central role of the Virgin as a celestial advocate who sits on the right hand of Christ and jointly presides over His court. Indeed, viewers would have immediately recognized
The Coronation of the Virgin as a reference to Mary's regal role in Paradise, as this subject was featured in the mosaic on the entrance wall of the city's Cathedral of San Maria del Fiore as early as 1310. By adding this scene to Taddeo Gaddi's fresco cycle that features Mary's story on Earth, Giotto's altarpiece extended her legend into the Heavenly sphere to give her a deified quality to match her earthly significance.
By Audrey Overholt and Julia Brinker
Bibliography:
Echols, Mary Tuck. “The Coronation of the Virgin in Fifteenth-Century Italian Art,” Ph.d dissertation, University of Virginia, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1976.
Gardner, Julian. “The Decoration of the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce.”
Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 34, no. 2, 1971, 89–114.
Janson-La Palme, Robert J.H. “Taddeo Gaddi’s Baroncelli Chapel: Studies in Design and Content,” Ph.d dissertation, Princeton University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1976.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 34.18, 98.06, 1.84
Camera Location: 30.775, 96.140, 3.323
Camera Looks Towards: 64.798, 95.118, -2.256
Annotation block name: The Coronation of the Virgin - Description
Annotation Details:
The Coronation of the Virgin is a physical centerpiece of the Baroncelli Chapel. It serves as the liturgical focus of the space and completes the pictorial cycle that celebrates Mary’s presence and brings her holiness into the viewer’s realm through artistic representation. This channeling can be seen on the altarpiece, which features Mary’s transition from human existence to a deified position of Sainthood. Christ and Mary sit in the center of the altarpiece’s main compartment, wearing white garments. If their central location on the altarpiece and glowing attire do not immediately signify the importance of these two figures, their size and height do. Mary and Christ almost double the size of the rest of the figures and sit at a much higher position from their regal perches on the holy throne. This scale hierarchy shows viewers who matters most in this scene and the implications of Mary’s coronation as Queen of Heaven. Now crowned as the Bride of Christ, Mary occupies a religious realm almost equal to Jesus's, a concept underscored by their similar sizing.
The small crowd of witnesses consider Mary and Jesus from their lower positions. Golden halos frame the heads of saints and angels, while four of the latter sit at the feet of Mary and Christ, reverently holding gifts before the holy couple. These characters stand in a naturalist posture, with those in the front obscuring their partners behind them. The overlapping of the figures in the crowd is an attempt to create a realistic space, even though how the crowd expands vertically is not natural. The angels expand into the two other panels on the left and right, creating a sea of color contrasting with the gold background. At the same time, a group of musicians sit at the lower part of the panels, giving the scene a celebratory nature.
This altarpiece is the final image in the story being told on the walls of this chapel, which tells of Mary’s ascension to Sainthood. The coronation scene is deliberately left out of the fresco program and commemorated on the altarpiece to emphasize the central role of the chapel as a vessel for Mary’s religious presence. This image is also placed at the center of the Baroncelli Chapel’s artistic program, for it is a common picture. During the 14th century, the Triumph of the Virgin would have been recognizable to many as a scene where Christ reinforces his reverence for his mother. This iconography helps make the entire chapel program readable and brings the different elements together as a whole artistic unit.
By Audrey Overholt and Julia Brinker
Bibliography:
Echols, Mary Tuck. “The Coronation of the Virgin in Fifteenth-Century Italian Art.”
University of Virginia, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1976.
Gardner, Julian. “The Decoration of the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce.”
Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 34, no. 2, 1971, pp. 89–114., doi:10.2307/1481767.
Janson-La Palme, Robert J.H. “Taddeo Gaddi’s Baroncelli Chapel: Studies in Design and Content. (Volume I: Text. Volume II: Illustrations).” PhD diss.,
Princeton University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1976.
Morin, Georges. “Giotto: The Coronation of the Virgin .”
HOLY SPIRIT PROVINCE SAINT-ESPRIT, 12 Aug. 2015, www.franciscanfriars.ca/news/giotto-the-coronation-of-the-virgin/.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 10.51, 103.43, 0.60
Camera Location: 7.820, 93.303, 3.664
Camera Looks Towards: 8.604, 144.120, 7.914
Annotation block name: The Bardi Family and the Origins of S. Croce
Annotation Details:
Construction of the Franciscan basilica of Santa Croce began in 1295, supposedly supervised by the sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio. The current church is at least the third structure at this site, with the earliest edifice probably in place as early as 1211 and a newer one constructed a few decades later (see the floorplans on this website reconstructed by Erik Gustafson). Construction coincided with a period of deep division with the Franciscan Order. Two groups, Spirituals and Conventuals, disagreed with one another regarding the pledge of poverty that their founder had taken. Spirituals (or Observants) embraced the mendicant philosophy championed by Francis during his lifetime. They opposed the proliferation of the magnificent, ornate churches that some began to build in Francis’s name immediately following his death in 1226. Though Spirituals found this practice inconsistent with their founder’s teachings, Conventuals took the opposite stance, seeking to relax their order’s poverty pledge. In their mind, improved living conditions within the order would in turn attract both members and benefactors to their cause. The Conventual faction commissioned S. Croce, thanks in no small part to the financial support of Ridolfo de’ Bardi, a member of the most prominent banking family in Florence.
Beginning their rise to power as wool merchants, the Bardi family had played a major role in international trade since the rise of the Guelphs in Florence. As early as 1267 they began to import fleece from England to manufacture luxury clothing. Their business grew quickly, and the resulting influx of capital allowed the family to expand into banking. They ingratiated themselves to the Papacy by hiring English monasteries to maintain flocks of sheep, with the proceeds from this fleece then going to fund the Church. Over the next century this relationship blossomed and the Bardi soon became bankers to the Papacy, as well as to the monarchies of England, France, and Sicily. The family lent money to their customers at a healthy interest rate, which earned them both significant profits as well as the wrath of those who accused them of the grievous sin of avarice. This enormous wealth, and the guilt that came with it, drove bankers like the Bardi into the open arms of the Franciscans, who accepted their offers to fund projects like Santa Croce in return for absolution.
In early
Trecento Florence, the Bardi family had connections to both of the city’s predominant rival mendicant orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. One of Ridolfo de’Bardi’s brothers endowed a chapel in the Dominican church of S. Maria Novella and another actually joined that convent as a friar. However, records from 1296 indicate that Ridolfo’s mother made a significant financial contribution to one of the friars at S. Croce which included a large bequest to fund the performance of mass. Two other members of the Bardi family, Matteo and Benedetto Bardi, soon joined the Franciscan community there.
Although Ridolfo actually lived closer to S. Maria Novella, he chose to associate himself more closely with the Franciscans across town. He endowed a number of chapels there, including chapels dedicated to Saints Louis of Toulouse and Lawrence (as well as the Cappella di San Francesco), becoming the most prodigious donor to the church.
Ridolfo’s motives for such extensive patronage appear to have been mostly entrepreneurial. His close business associates, the Peruzzi, Acciaiuoli, Cherchi and Baroncelli families, had already established themselves as patrons of Santa Croce. This, compounded with the fact that the Acciaiuoli were Ridolfo’s blood relatives, probably spurred him to choose the Franciscan church out of a sense of competition. Throughout much of the early-fourteenth century, these families utilized their banking connections and church patronage to control both the purse-strings and public policies of the Florentine city-state.
But all good things must come to an end. In 1342 the Bardi firm utterly collapsed when King Edward III of England defaulted on his loan payments during the Hundred Years’ War. The unusual prosperity enjoyed by the family disintegrated during this moment of economic and political crisis, never to return. Other patrons of S. Croce closely associated with the Bardi, such as the Peruzzi family, also suffered. Although the Bardi maintained a reputation as a leading Florentine family (in fact, Cosimo de’ Medici would marry Contessina de’ Bardi in the 1420s), they would never again exercise the same level of influence they had possessed at the time of S. Croce’s initial construction.
By Alex Fedor and George Bent
Bibliography:
Gardner, Julian.
Giotto and His Publics Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2011.
Long, Jane C. “The Program of Giotto’s Saint Francis Cycle at Santa Croce in Florence,”
Franciscan Studies 52, (1992), 85–133.
Hunt, Edwin S. “A New Look at the Dealings of the Bardi and Peruzzi with Edward III,”
The Journal of Economic History 50 (1990), 149–62.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 10.51, 103.45, 1.12
Camera Location: 7.820, 93.303, 3.664
Camera Looks Towards: 8.604, 144.120, 7.914
Annotation block name: Giotto and the Conventuals
Annotation Details:
Although Ridolfo de’ Bardi paid for burial rights inside the chapel that bears his family’s name, Conventual Franciscans probably retained control of all decisions regarding the Cappella di San Francesco. Because of the Conventuals’ relaxed interpretation of St. Francis’s rule of poverty, their order saw fit to build large, resplendent churches such as Santa Croce and sought out patrons such as Ridolfo de Bardi to finance their endeavors.
Besides his talents as a painter, Giotto di Bondone possessed detailed knowledge of the prevailing religious and political issues of his day, and his affiliations with the Franciscans can be seen in the frescoes he painted in Santa Croce, a Conventual stronghold. Some of his images in the basilica cater to the Conventual ethos through depicting the communal nature of mendicantism. These scenes show friars living in common dwellings, speaking with finely dressed lay devotees, and interacting with Francis: none show begging friars or individual preachers speaking to an audience of commoners. For example,
The Apparition on Arles shows life within a convent, as a group of French friars sit together deep in thought, while
The Ordination of the Rule emphasizes the power of the group rather than the individual.
The Proof By Fire underscores the international nature of the order and the extent to which Francis’ influence spread across the Mediterranean.
Additionally, Giotto depicts the types of affluent laity who would have served as their benefactors. Both the
St. Francis Renounces His Inheritance and
The Death of St. Francis feature upper-middleclass merchants first resisting Francis’s mission, and then eventually accepting it following his death.
The Ordination of the Rule explicitly links Francis and his followers to the Papacy, demonstrating the pope’s interest in promoting the new Order as a revenue generating institution. The representation of
Louis of Toulouse accentuates the French saint’s royal origins and depicts him as a well-groomed and well-fed Conventual. Francis’ diplomatic qualities appear in his persuasive encounter with the Sultan in
The Proof By Fire. Even the image of
The Stigmatization of St. Francis aimed to please Santa Croce’s Conventuals, who claimed a special interest in the miraculous Stigmata that marked their founder as
Alter Christus. By depicting affluent members of the laity alongside friars, Giotto’s fresco cycle promotes the Conventuals’ loose stance on vows of poverty, demonstrating the many benefits this outlook could bring to their order.
By Alex Fodor and George Bent
Bibliography:
Gardner, Julian.
Giotto and His Publics. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2011.
Goffen, Rona.
Spirituality in Conflict. Pennsylvania State University Press: State College, PA, 1988.
Lawrence, C.H.
The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society London: Longman, 1994.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 9.99, 103.49, 11.20
Camera Location: 8.219, 97.714, 12.168
Camera Looks Towards: 8.118, 106.902, 12.934
Annotation block name:
The Stigmatization of St. Francis
Annotation Details:
Sometime around 1315, Giotto received a commission to paint the fresco cycle of St. Francis in Santa Croce’s Bardi Chapel. One of the seven paintings of the cycle,
The Stigmatization of St. Francis, appears over the entry to the chapel just to the right of the Cappella Maggiore. Despite the large
tramezzo that stood between them and the high altar, fourteenth-century lay viewers could have seen this image clearly from the nave thanks to its elevated position. The painting’s prominence demonstrates the importance with which both the Franciscans and their lay audiences regarded the miracle of the stigmatization.
The Stigmatization of St. Francis depicts the moment when the saint received the wounds of Christ from a seraph in the heavens. According to St. Bonaventure’s biography, this miracle occurred in 1224 during a monastic retreat in the desolate wilderness of Mount La Verna. Bonaventure relates that, as Francis paused in prayer and began to contemplate the Passion of Christ, a six-winged seraph with fiery wings descended from the heavens. The angel transferred to Francis’s body the wounds endured by Christ on the cross, marks which he bore for the rest of his life. Francis kept this event to himself and the miracle remained hidden until his death in 1226, two years after its occurrence. Soon thereafter, Pope Gregory validated the miraculous stigmatization after Francis supposedly appeared to him in a dream bleeding from his wounds. Francis was officially canonized in 1228.
Giotto depicts the kneeling saint in a frontal position, twisting his body away from the seraph while turning his head back to look upon the angelic form. The seraph takes the form of Christ nailed to the cross with hands outstretched, a position Francis mirrors with his own upturned palms. Thus, the bodies of both Jesus and Francis take the form of the crucifix, linking the two and emphasizing the friar’s status as an
Alter Christus. Framed by a natural environment consisting of a cliff, several trees, and a small church that could reference S. Croce, Giotto’s fresco places Francis in a somewhat-recognizable earthly setting rather than an otherworldly or heavenly location. Francis’s upturned head directs the viewer’s gaze first to the fresco’s painted seraph, then beyond the picture plane to the light emanating from the stained-glass lancet window directly overhead. Finally, his gaze encourages the viewer to look beyond the opening of the window and towards the heavens. Giotto’s dramatic portrayal of the
Alter Christus, compounded with its placement near a natural light source, helped manifest the presence of God to fourteenth-century audiences, as it still does for present-day viewers.
By Alex Fedor
Bibliography:
Gardner, Julian.
Giotto and His Public.s Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2011.
Bonaventure.
The Life of St. Francis of Assisi. TAN, 1988.
Goffen, Rona.
Spirituality in Conflict Pennsylvania State University Press: State College, PA, 1988.
D’Arcais, Francesca Flores.
Giotto Abbeville Press: New York, 1995.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 5.98, 108.90, 7.97
Camera Location: 9.765, 106.686, 6.524
Camera Looks Towards: -26.310, 107.053, 28.217
Annotation block name:
Saint Francis Renounces his Inheritance
Annotation Details:
The first image of the Bardi Chapel’s fresco cycle,
St. Francis Renounces His Inheritance, depicts the young saint’s renunciation of worldly goods and his union with the institutional Church. According to legend, while at prayer in the dilapidated church of Santa Damiano, Francis heard a painted image of a crucifix speak to him, commanding him to ‘rebuild my church.’ In obedience to this directive, Francis literally set about to rebuild the small church on the outskirts of Assisi. Upon completing the project, however, he realized that the commandment had referred not to a single church, but to the entire institution of The Church.
Before he could act on this epiphany, he first had to reckon with his family. To pay for the repairs to S. Damiano, Francis had sold cloth belonging to his father, a wealthy merchant named Pietro di Bernadone. Pietro, who had not granted his son permission to take his merchandise, became incensed upon discovering Francis’s actions and denounced his son as a thief. Unwilling to prosecute Francis on the grounds that he had acted in the name of God, the civic authorities remanded the case the Bishop of Assisi, Father Guido. In the town square before the Bishop’s palace, Pietro demanded that Francis return the money he had stolen. In response, Francis stripped himself naked, renounced his entire inheritance, and chose to dedicate himself to God alone. Bishop Guido, impressed with Francis’s fervor, threw his mantle around Francis’s body, literally and figuratively embracing the young man’s new life.
Giotto’s fresco of this event, situated in the Bardi Chapel’s north lunette, divides the scene into two groups, with Francis serving as the lynchpin that holds these compositional elements together. On the left side of the town square stands Pietro and his merchant allies, while Bishop Guido and his clerical associates stand to the right. The draped Francis prays to God in between them, simultaneously separating and uniting the commercial and spiritual realms. Pietro’s arm and balled fist extend to his side, restrained by the grip of his colleagues, echoing the physical embrace of Francis and Bishop Guido. Similarly, groups of unruly boys and their disapproving elders flank both parties, a not-so-subtle reference to the generational conflicts that often divide parents and children. This concept reappears in the palace wall that separates the two groups, which both frames the tense encounter and emphasizes the metaphorical barrier between Francis and his father. Giotto uses architectural elements to heighten Francis’s connection to God, as his praying hands point to the skies (and to the hand of God) in a way that emphasizes the highest vertical point of the palace. Giotto imbues his expressive figures with both a sense of weightiness as well as a piercing psychological intensity, elements characteristic of his style.
We do not know the intended audience of Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Bardi Chapel. Surely, the friars in S. Croce had the ability to inspect Giotto’s paintings at appropriate moments during the day. Male members of the Bardi family also likely had access to these images, as did other powerful male citizens; however, it remains unclear how often they took advantage of that right. Certainly, lay women did not possess access to a space so near the high altar, making the likeliness that they saw these frescoes slim to none.
On a superficial level, the images that Giotto produced promote the Bardi family’s commitment to the tenets of Franciscan poverty. However, in reality the family adhered to a mercantile value system completely inconsistent with the saint’s preaching (though perhaps not with the Conventual interpretation of Franciscan mendicantism). Embracing grandeur and materialism, the Bardi embodied the affluence and luxury that Francis had condemned. However, with his patronage, Ridolfo de’ Bardi feigned his family’s devotion to higher ideals. Ironically advertising his family as supporters of an Order whose teachings routinely condemned people like him, Ridolfo secured a resting place for his family on earth while also appealing to a higher authority for the salvation of his soul.
By Alex Fodor and George Bent
Bibliography:
D’Arcais, Francesca Flores.
Giotto. Abbeville Press: New York, 1995.
Goffen, Rona.
Spirituality in Conflict. Pennsylvania State University Press: 1988.
Lawrence, C.H.
The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society. London: Longman, 1994.
Long, Jane C. “The program of Giotto’s Saint Francis Cycle at Santa Croce in Florence,”
Franciscan Studies 52 (1992), 85–133.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: 10.23, 105.38, 7.93
Camera Location: 6.069, 107.253, 9.100
Camera Looks Towards: 48.165, 107.347, 8.872
Annotation block name:
The Approval of the Rule
Annotation Details:
Giotto’s
The Approval of the Rule depicts Pope Innocent III granting Francis consent to found the Franciscan Order. In 1209, Francis and a small group of his followers traveled to Rome to seek Papal approval for their mendicant movement. Rather than live consumed by the desire for earthly possessions, Francis and his followers wished to live humbly by following the “Rule of Life” that Francis wrote on the journey to meet the Pope. While Innocent agreed to hear the group’s petition in his palace of St. John Lateran, he declined to offer an immediate verdict. He spent months mulling over his decision but, according to legend, in 1210 he experienced a vivid dream in which he saw Francis physically holding up the entire Church hierarchy on his shoulders. He awoke from this dream and immediately called a meeting with the Franciscans, granting them their wish on the spot.
Situated in the south lunette on the chapel’s right wall,
The Approval of the Rule echoes an earlier version of this scene Giotto painted on the right nave wall of S. Francesco in Assisi. Like that earlier image, Giotto situates the meeting in an enclosed room of the Lateran palace. Francis kneels before the robed and enthroned Pope in a position of obedience, while Innocent hands over a parchment detailing the Rule to Francis. This parchment bears the words “Rule of Life,” implying that Innocent had composed the document. Even though Francis wrote the Rule, by crediting the Pope Giotto ascribes to the papacy the ultimate authority to approve such a request. He also imbues Innocent with moral authority, attributing to the Pope the characteristics of humility and poverty which Francis’s friars were expected to embody.
Giotto took some artistic license in his representation of these events. Though Tommaso of Celano’s biography of Francis describes only eleven followers, Giotto depicts the saint accompanied by twelve followers, the twelfth obviously added to underscore the popular understanding of Francis as
Alter Christus. Yet, puzzlingly, only one of these twelve has the same tonsure that adorns Francis’s head. Additionally, though St. Bonaventure only cites the presence of one cardinal in his 1260 biography of St. Francis, Giotto includes two cardinals flanking the pope as a way to offset the friars on the painting’s right side, balancing the composition. On the gabled roof directly above Francis appears a bust of St. Peter, connecting the mendicant saint to the larger institutional Church and its first leader. At the moment of their acceptance into the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Rome, Giotto depicts the Franciscans’ obedience to the Church and willingness to submit to its higher authority.
By Alex Fedor and George Bent
Bibliography:
Goffen, Rona.
Spirituality in Conflict Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.
Lawrence, C.H.
The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society London: Longman, 1994.
Long, Jane C. “The program of Giotto’s Saint Francis Cycle at Santa Croce in Florence,”
Franciscan Studies 52 (1992), 85–133.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Page: https://3d.wlu.edu/v21/pages/SCroce/SCroce.html
Location of Annotation: -10.66,55.68,-1.31
Camera Location: -10.289, 56.150, 1.434
Camera Looks Towards: -10.175, 50.605, -8.718
Annotation block name:
The Tedaldi Tomb, S. Croce nave
Annotation Details:
Around the base of the fourth pier that separates the left aisle from the nave of Santa Croce, members of the Tedaldi family installed tombs between ca. 1357 and 1474. While kinsmen installed tombs across the city and beyond in the churches of the Badia Fiorentina, S. Caterina, San Giovannino dei Cavalieri, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Maria Novella, S. Niccolò a Calenzano, and Santissima Annunziata, Santa Croce held the largest number of Tedaldi monuments, at least six in all. Two that were installed in the piazza of Santa Croce were replaced by those at the foot of the Tedaldi pier prior to the end of the sixteenth century, sometime between 1439 and 1596.
In the later fifteenth century, the cloth merchant Leonardo di Papi Tedaldi decided that he did not want to join the ancestors in any of the extant family tombs and instead hired Antonio Rossellino to sculpt an extraordinary cover for a new tomb. The work was finished by October 1474, when Rossellini sued the Tedaldi for the forty florins they still owed him for his work. Effigies on Florentine tombs were rare, especially for couples. They were typically reserved for important clerics, government officials, and others honored for their service to the state, shown as if on their funeral biers.
Using white Carrara marble, Antonio carved a relief sculpture showing Leonardo and his wife, Lisa di Francesco degli Alberti, reclining on their marriage bed, suggesting that their wedding vows will extend for eternity. Leonardo’s double-effigy tomb is the only example in the city that uses a bed rather than a bier. Another notable feature of Leonardo Tedaldi’s tomb is that both figures do not wear shoes—a rather rare motif found on tombs belonging to monks, friars, or members of tertiary orders. The Tedaldi may have requested bare feet as a sign of their humility and religious devotion. The absence of an inscription and coat of arms represents another departure from convention.
That this grave belonged to the Tedaldi is made clear by the faded coat of arms on the pier above it, as well as its proximity to the tombs of Leonardo’s great-great grandparents on the south and west faces of the pier. According to a Santa Croce inventory of tombs, known as a sepoltuario, the pier also held a funeral banner and three shields, certainly decorated with Tedaldi heraldry and carried in Tedaldi funeral processions.
By Anne Leader
Bibliography:
Beck, James. “An Effigy Tomb Slab by Antonio Rosselino.” Gazette Des Beaux-Arts, vol. 95 (1980): 213-17.
Pines, Doralynn S. “The Tomb Slabs of Santa Croce: A New Sepoltuario.” (1985): 523-29
Chiti, Antonella. Le lapidi terragne di Santa Croce: Dalla meta del Trecento al 1471, vol. 1 (2012): 232-35.