Data di Pubblicazione:
2015
Citazione:
The space of narrative: Romanesque wall painting in Northern Italy and its sources / F. Scirea. ((Intervento presentato al 5. convegno ArtHist Umeni Prostoru tenutosi a Olomouc nel 2015.
Abstract:
It is believable that narrative wall painting first appeared in a Christian church in the late Fourth Century. Nola's Bishop Paolino (355-431) at the beginning of the Fifth Century affirmed that biblical cycles painted on a basilica clerestory were "raro more", a rarity: we can gather that he was referring to the main churches in Rome, perhaps in Milan too.
Old St Peter's in Rome, the largest church in the Latin West, presented an extended narrative cycle that exerted a widespread influence on church decoration throughout the Middle Ages. Forty-six fields arranged in two registers represented the Old Testament on the right (North) wall of the nave, as well as forty-six on the facing wall illustrating the New Testament. Standing Prophets and Apostles were aligned between the clerestory windows, while Popes' portraits were put in the lower frieze, just above the colossal lintel. A sequence of Peter's life was depicted in the transept. As Constantine's church was demolished during the Renaissance, to make room for the new St Peter's projected by Bramante, the old paintings are partially known through watercolours made in 1605 by Domenico Tasselli, supporting Giacomo Grimaldi's notes.
Few paintings were still visible in the half nave left standing after the progressive demolition which started from the apse a century earlier. On the right wall, Grimaldi could describe all but three of the twenty-two subjects remaining, thirteen of them drawn by Tasselli. Advising that the narration could be followed from apse to facade, the upper register aligned two episodes concerning Noah's Ark, six about Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (including Abraham greetings the Angels, the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Blessing of Jacob). It is thought that the demolished twelve bays featured the first part of the Genesis, from the Creation to Cain and Abel. The lower register showed an Exodus sequence ending with Moses Closing the Waters. The destroyed previous bays must have illustrated Patriarch Joseph's life.
The New Testament cycle on the facing wall had mostly disappeared by the early Seventeenth Century. Only the Baptism, the Raising of Lazarus, the Crucifixion, the Anastasis, Christ appearing to the eleven Apostles and the Blessing at Bethany could be recognized by Grimaldi. Tasselli transcribed five of them in the watercolour. It is almost certain that the Baptism concluded an Infancy cycle starting with the Annunciation. The Raising of Lazarus (not drawn by Tasselli) was usually put at the end of Christ's public life, probably depicted in the lower register. Christ's apparitions must have been the conclusion of a sequence related to the Passion and linked to Peter's Mission in the transept.
Not all the paintings dated back to the early Christian period. We are barely informed about restorations occurring in Ninth Century, under Pope Leo IV (847-855) and Pope Formosus (891-896). Further alterations must have been done before Giotto's work on the North clerestory. The representation of the Anastasis seems to appear not early than the Seventh Century; the huge Crucifixion, filling four pictorial fields, could be the enlargement of the primitive scene. As we are focusing on Old St Peter's as a source and inspiration of Romanesque church decoration (paraphrasing the title of a worthy essay by Herbert Leon Kessler), it is not our aim to determine sequence and nature of early restorations. What is important is that St Peter's decoration affected, over eight Centuries, many following monumental cycles, also in Romanesque Lombardy.
St Paul's Outside the Walls was erected during Constantine's reign along the consular Via Ostiense, in a place traditionally referred to the Apostle of the Gentiles' decapitation. Around 385 Theodosius had the middle-size
Tipologia IRIS:
14 - Intervento a convegno non pubblicato
Keywords:
Early Middle Ages; Middle Ages; Romanesque; Wall Painting; Iconography; Narrative Rome; Milan
Elenco autori:
F. Scirea
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