Episode 18: Florence – Giotto’s Frescoes in Santa Croce

Bongiorno! I’m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero. Join me in Rebuilding the Renaissance and making art and history come to life.

Welcome to the Rebuilding the Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy, from the glory of Rome, to the magnificence of the Renaissance. And now here’s your host, Dr. Rocky Ruggiero.

Bongiorno, everyone. Today’s podcast is about one of the family chapels in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, which was owned by the Bardi family, and which was decorated by the great 14th century painter, Giotto. In fact, the subject of the frescoes inside of the Bardi Chapel is scenes from the life of St. Francis of Assisi. And although we don’t know the date for certain … There are no documents that survived associated with the fresco cycle. Because there is an image of St. Louis of Toulouse on the walls of the Bardi Chapel, just to the right of the window there, and we know that St. Louis was actually canonized in 1316, we usually date these frescoes to one year later in 1317. And the frescoes actually represent one of the most important corpus of surviving frescoes by the great Giotto.

So what I want to do today is talk about the frescoes themselves, again, talking a bit more about Francis and the legacy that he left behind with his life, but also to introduce the genius of the great Giotto. And again, we mutilate that name in English as Giotto. But after listening to my podcast, I ask that you please pronounce it correctly, Giotto. And if you can do it, you can do kind of a dramatic Italian hand gesture while you’re pronouncing it that way. Now in my personal, top five painters of all time list, I’d put Giotto right there at the top. Perhaps not the greatest of all, but one of the top five painters of all time.

And again, you need to assess these artists in context. What they were able to do with the available technology of their time. So often times in history we overlook Giotto, because people find his style somewhat primitive. It’s not Botticelli, it’s not Leonardo, or what have you. But consider that the innovations that Giotto introduced are essentially the foundations for European painting for approximately three centuries or so. He was one of the most revolutionary and innovative artists of all time. And what you’ll find is that A, I adore singing his praises because I think they’re all worthy. And two, we’ll be talking quite a bit about Giotto, okay, through this series of podcasts, because his contribution was so great.

Now consider that when you approach the Bardi Chapel. So you’re walking essentially towards the high altar of the Church of Santa Croce, and it is the first family chapel to the right-hand side. And you may remember that in an earlier podcast I indicated that it is that chapel that is the most important of all to the liturgical right of the priest. And as you approach the chapel, what you’ll find is that there is actually a painting just outside and above the chapel opening, below that stained glass window. And the subject of this fresco, which was painted by Giotto as well, is St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. I know we talked about the importance of this particular event in his life, and Giotto actually illustrates it there outside and above the chapel.

You can see Francis sort of genuflecting with his brown habit, and then that figure of Jesus supported in the sky by seraphims, and these sort of laser beams shooting down, and striking Francis in the corresponding places, hands, feet, side. Now the question is, why would Giotto paint the most important event in the life of St. Francis, outside and above the chapel? And the answer is very simple. You may remember from my discussion of Santa Croce and how the gothic church was Renaissanced in the 1570s, and that one of the components of the Renaissancing was the removal of the rood screen, that 20 foot high, dividing wall that essentially cut the church across, separating clergy from laity. So what Giotto is doing is essentially allowing everyone inside the church to see this particular event from the life of St. Francis. He has popularizing the actual material that he is painting.

Now, let’s look at it from a kind of modern perspective. Giotto just got hired by the Bill Gates of the 14th century world, by the Bardi family, the wealthiest family perhaps in all of Europe at the time. What does he care about the poor people standing on the other side of the rood screen? Well, obviously Giotto does care, and that’s why he’s the perfect artist to depict scenes from the life of Francis. He, like Francis, very much caring about the meek and the weak, as opposed to just the strong and the mighty as well. In fact, considered that Giotto was a lay member of the Franciscan order, and much of his work is in fact located in Franciscan churches, and I think you’ll discover why.

Now, when you walk up to the actual mouth of the chapel, you may have passed … Before I forget, there’s a painting which is the altarpiece of the Bardi Chapel, which was painted by a very important 13th century artist, named Coppo di Marcovaldo, which has hence been removed. They actually display it now down at the bottom of the stairs. And it’s an illustration, essentially, of Francis in the center wearing his habit, and then surrounded by scenes from his life. And consider that perhaps the best way to illustrate the revolution that Giotto was, is by telling you that the style of that altarpiece is essentially the style that was dominant in the 13th and early 14th centuries.

So if you compare that almost Egyptian hieroglyphic look of that particular altarpiece, to what you have on the walls, which was painted of course by Giotto, the analogy I use with my students is it’s like sort of comparing technicolor technology, if you remember the old days of technicolor TV, to Pixar technology, which is of course what we see today. The scenes read left to right. There are six of them inside the chapel, and you start reading the upper left-hand corner. And again, something we sort of take for granted, because how else would you organize scenes?

But consider that if you look back at the altarpiece, there really is no rhyme nor reason. It’s up to the viewer to figure out exactly how to read the scenes. But Giotto, like a great movie director, and in fact I’ll be making a ton here of cinematic references and illusions, like a great director, conscious of course that he’s creating this for an audience, Giotto is perhaps the first artist aware of the spectator, of the subject-object relationship that he’s creating. So he’s going to help you read, and he’s going to organize the scenes left to right, top to bottom, so that of course it does facilitate the spectators’ understanding and comprehension of the scenes.

The problem with this, though, is in fact that the scenes are arranged frontally, so that in order to see them proper, it’s this kind of back and forth thing you have to do, going from one side of the chapel to the other. And if any of you are fans of the old Room with a View movie, the E.M. Forster novel turned into a film, there’s that very famous scene, of course, where that tour guide, who’s kind of lurking in Santa Croce, taking the two women to see the Bardi Chapel. And the great image is shot from behind, where essentially you see what I’m talking about right now in the guide moving the women back and forth. If you’ve not seen it, it really is worth a look.

Anyway, the scene in the top left-hand corner is the scene, essentially, where Francis renounces his worldly goods. You may remember back from my podcast about the life of St. Francis, of how he had essentially funded his little restoration project of San Damiano by giving away and selling his father’s best cloth, and that when he and his father, Pietro, kind of crossed paths in the central piazza of Assisi, Pietro, Francis’s father, goes ballistic on him. He just attacks Francis, wanted to physically beat him up. And the story goes that Francis was just so marveled by this aggression, that he stood there dumbfounded and took off the robe that he was wearing, which of course was his father’s very expensive textile, and threw that robe at his father, turned his hands up to heaven and said, “Now I can truly say that I have only one father in heaven.”

And now if you look at the scene, you’ll see the two central figures. Francis is of course the figure without any clothes on. It’s pretty obvious to spot. He’s also the one with the halo. So when you’re trying to read these scenes … In fact, one of my other objectives is to make all of you visually literate, so that you look at these scenes and you understand what it is that’s going on. And obviously, a halo is indicative of a holy person. And so Francis you see there standing, although he is wrapped by this figure behind him, who was the bishop of Assisi, and according to tradition was there conveniently to cover up Francis’s nudity.

To the left, you see Francis’s father, who looks like an offensive lineman. He’s in this very aggressive stance, and he has his arm cocked back as well to indicate that his intention was to essentially strike Francis with, what we call, a round house right hook to the nose. And you’ll notice that Francis’s father is wearing yellow. So in these 14th century paintings, the bad guys usually wear yellow. So if you’re trying to read a scene, a yellow robe is indicative, perhaps, of an evil personage. Consider also that in a society that was openly antisemitic, oftentimes Jews are depicted as wearing yellow as well. So this is an attempt just to get you to understand these particular scenes.

If you now look across to the scene top right on the right-hand wall, you have the approval of the Franciscan Rule, where essentially you have Pope Innocent III sitting up on his cathedra, his chair. And then below him, he is essentially recognizing the Franciscan order as a lay order. And consider that Francis, of course, went on this mission with 12 of his followers. And this is another important aspect of Francis’s life, because he’s often referred to as the alter Christus, as the other Jesus, and many of the events in Francis’s life echoing those that happen in the life of Jesus. In fact, there was later a urban legend that Francis was born in a manger between an ox and a donkey, all of this to make him more similar to Jesus Christ.

So the top two scenes, the Francis renouncing his worldly goods in the left, and the approval of the Franciscan order of the right. And they are the hardest to see. They’re in that kind of lunette space right underneath the arch, although Giotto does a pretty extraordinary job making them significant nonetheless. Okay, we go back to the left-hand side, so the middle scene on the left-hand side, where the subject is the miraculous appearance at Arles, A-R-L-E-S. And if you don’t know, Arles is this extraordinarily beautiful town in the South of France. And the story is that Francis of Assisi appeared in a room where Anthony of Padua, you may remember the number two guy in the Franciscan order, was preaching to a group of Franciscans.

And you see Francis there in the center of the scene, his hands opening up, and Anthony pushed over to the left-hand side. And you’ll say, “Well, what’s so miraculous about that?” Well, the miracle here is that Francis was actually documented as being in Italy that day. So how is it that Francis was both in Italy and an Arles, France at the same time? And the answer of course is, “Miraculous.” In other words, it was a miracle specifically referred to as “bilocation.” Now this was something actually quite common across religions, where if someone is mystical enough, they can actually break through the time-space continuum and be in two places at once. Now, I’ve done it three or four times in my professional career. It is a painful process. No, just kidding.

But Francis appears in the center of the room. Now if you read Francis’s biography, and if you go to Assisi and actually see the same scene painted on the Upper Basilica walls, what you’ll find is that there’s only one Franciscan in the room who notices Francis. And this is what the biographer says. And if the biographer says this, this is how it’s painted on the walls of the Upper Basilica in Assisi. But if you look at Giotto’s interpretation here in the Bardi Chapel, what you see is that just about everyone but one of the Franciscans is looking up at St. Francis. In fact, the one who doesn’t notice Francis is the man who looks like he’s busy speaking on his cell phone directly below Anthony of Padua there on the far left-hand side.

So Giotto changes the story. Giotto takes artistic license, which today, for us, is an inalienable right. I think of most artists in the sense that we just imagine, of course, that artists are free to express themselves however they like. But consider that in the 14th century, that was not the case. In the 14th century, it was a matter of if the Bible said it happened this way, if Francis’s official biographer said it happened this way, if an artist before me painted it this way, then that’s the way it happened.

Yet Giotto realizes what I just think is the impossibility of a room full of Franciscan, and their founder, Francis himself, appearing in the center of the room, and the likelihood of only one person noticing him. The analogy I like to use is it’s like being at Graceland on the day of the king’s birthday, and Elvis himself walking through, and only one person noticing him. Everyone there is there for Elvis, and it’s kind of the same reason for the Franciscans as well. So changing the story to make it more credible, to make it more believable. And this is something that Giotto was the first introduce.

Okay, let’s now move across to the central scene on the right-hand side, where we have the trial by fire. Now, this is a very important episode in the life of Francis and probably completely fabricated. But when Francis was in Egypt … And again, I talk quite a bit about this in the podcast about Francis’s life, because I just adore the fact that Francis was willing to cross the aisle, as the expression goes, to study and to respect Islam. This was a radical thing at the time. But what happens is that there’s a legend born, that essentially Francis did eventually try to convert the Sultan of Egypt over to Christianity, and that the Sulton Malik, Al-Malik, decided to set up a test, a trial, between Christianity and Islam.

And it was going to be a trial by fire. Very simple concept. You light a big raging bonfire, two people take turns walking through it. Whoever lives wins, whoever dies loses. And in fact, these were often arranged throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but very seldom seen through, for any number of reasons. Usually they’d into litigation about rules and what have you. And by the time they finished and made all of the agreements necessary, the fire would have gone out, or it would miraculously start raining. And of course, this was God telling them that they need not go through it, or what have you.

Well, if you look at this particular scene, you’ll notice that the sultan actually occupies the central space. The sultan up on the throne, in this rather dramatic contrapposto position, this counter positioning, so that his right arm points dramatically down to the left, and his head turns slightly to the right. And the fact that the sultan is occupying the central space is quite sophisticated. In fact, if you look at the same scene again painted on the walls of the Upper Basilica in Assisi, you’ll find Francis occupying the central spot, which of course makes perfect sense. You’re looking at scenes from the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He is the high paid Hollywood star that you expect to see in every frame of the movie. It’s like going to see a Tom Cruise movie. You go see a Tom Cruise movie, he’s in every frame of the movie.

And I love it when people complain about the sort of obsessive appearance of Tom Cruise. And I say, “Well, if you don’t like Tom Cruise, don’t go see a Tom Cruise movie.” And it’s the same thing with Francis. Yet in this particular interpretation, you see Giotto putting the sultan there instead, which is very sophisticated, because he is the pivotal figure. He is the judge. He is the person that Francis is trying to convert. And so I believe that the gesture of his right arm pointing down to the left is the more emphatic. And so we’re inclined to follow that gesture down, and he’s pointing at this sort of red blob-ish thing, which of course represents the fire. Not the most intimidating fire in the world, but it serves its purpose.

And to the right of the fire, you have Francis standing in profile, and with his left hand you see him kind of clutching his robe. And with his right hand, he’s pointing at his forehead. Two very simple gestures that are incredibly effective to indicate that, in fact, Francis is in the zone. He’s about to walk through the fire. He’s clutching his robe because he’s lifting it up so he can take a step, and that finger pointing towards his forehead because he’s making the sign of the cross. He’s blessing himself before going in. In other words, we know that Francis is about to go inside.

Now, one very quick aside, when I once asked my students what Francis was doing with that left hand clutching his robe, one of my students replied that Francis was grabbing his knots. And you may remember that the Franciscan habit incorporates this rope with three knots tied onto it, representing their three vows. But when he in fact said this, I was down on the floor in tears, because it was a legitimate answer. He could have in fact been grabbing his knots, but he was not.

Okay, then we remember that the sultan was also then looking over to his right-hand side. And if you look over to the other side, so your left-hand side of the sultan, what you see is this scattering of Imams. There’s quite a bit of damage done to the far left-hand side, but if you look carefully, you can make out the top of a doorway, which is identical to the doorway on the side where Francis is. And one of the Imams, one of the Muslim priests, is actually halfway through the door. In other words, while Francis is about to walk through the fire, the Imams are getting out of dodge. They want no part of this of course, and so they’re leaving the scene.

The second Imam, so we’re moving from left to right, is in profile. And you can make out how he’s lifted his robe with both of his hands, and he’s literally sneaking out by tip toeing. And then the third of the Imams wearing yellow, is instead positioned frontally, and he looks like he’s doing that sort of side shuffle, [inaudible 00:18:22], Vaudeville tap dance kind of thing, “That’s all folks” sort of imagery. And then next to him is a figure wearing a white robe, who reaches over, grabs him, and then points back at Francis.

So this juxtaposition of, “While you are running away across to the other side, Francis is instead about to jump into the flames.” This juxtaposition, this figuring out a way to balance these two events happening simultaneously in one scene, for me to tell you that it’s 100 years ahead of its time is an understatement. That kind of sophistication really won’t become common in Renaissance painting until well into the 16th century, and Giotto was painting these scenes in the early 1300. It’s mind boggling just how ahead of his time he was.

Okay, let’s cross over again now to the left, to the lowest scene on the left-hand side, which essentially is three subjects in one. It is the death of St. Francis, and you can literally see Francis there in the center of the scene lying on his funeral bier. It is the ascension of Francis’s soul. If you look at the top of the scene, you’ll see half of Francis’s face has disappeared since, but he’s being carried in a circle by angels, and this represents, essentially, his soul being carried up into heaven. And then also the confirmation of the stigmata. That figure in red kneeling in front of Francis with his back to us is the doctor from Assisi, the first to run an autopsy on the body of Francis, whose name was Jerome.

So let’s unpack this a bit. First thing, the facial expressions of the Franciscans standing around Francis are tremendous. And Francis was the first painter, not artist, because there was in fact a sculptor by the name of Nicola Pisano who was already doing this. But he was the first painter to figure out how to use facial physiognomy and expression to communicate emotion. And if you look at the faces of these Franciscans with their eyes cringing, with their mouths pulled back, you get the distinct impression that they are in fact crying, that they are mourning the death, obviously, of St. Francis amongst them.

One very interesting note, a few years back when the chapel was under restoration, and I was forced to teach the frescoes in the classroom using PowerPoint, something dawned on me. Right before I started the lecture, without any preface or preamble or explanation, I showed a detail of just one of those Franciscans mourning, put it on the screen, and asked my students what the emotional state was of this person. And a majority of them thought that the person was actually laughing, because if you think about it, your expression for laughter and for crying is essentially the same. You can laugh yourself into tears, and you can cry yourself into an almost sobbing, heaving kind of laughter. What of course changes is the stimulus that causes one emotion or the other.

And so you see these Franciscans all mourning his death. And the question I ask is how do we move from the actual mortal death of St. Francis down below, to the more celestial ascension of his soul at the top? And the answer’s very simple. Directly above the face of Francis is a Franciscan looking up. And again, this is Giotto catching us at being ourselves, knowing human nature and the fact that we are nosy creatures. And so the tendency is if we see someone looking up, we also look up. This is the sort of Hitchcockian in Giotto. Much like Hitchcock, of course, knew how to really stimulate our fears and anxieties, or what have you, so too does Giotto here. And in fact, the homework assignment I then give to my students when we’re in the Bardi Chapel is for them at any point after the lecture to just randomly stop somewhere and look up, and then count the number of people who actually stop to look up as well. It’s an amazingly simple but amazingly poignant way to lead our eyes upward.

And then finally, to this confirmation of the stigmata that we have there in the front of the scene. Now, did it happen essentially at Francis’s wake? And the answer of course is no. So why does Giotto insert this event, this confirmation, this sticking of his hand into the wound on the side of Francis? And the answer is that it’s essentially a kind of mass media confirmation. In other words, it’s the equivalent today of most of us believing that because we’ve heard something on television or read it on the internet, that it is true, that this idea of mass media somehow confirming what essentially is not confirmed. But because it seems authoritative to us, we have a tendency to believe it.

And so it’s kind of the same thing here. So if someone sees an image of this Jerome sticking his hand into the wound of Francis in a chapel owned by the wealthiest family, essentially, in the world, and painted by the world’s most famous painter, the probability of them believing that the event actually took place is obviously much greater, so combining it all into one scene. Now, just to close this up, to the other side, what you have instead is this figure sitting up. In fact, tradition maintains that the moment Francis died, one of his good friends actually sat up and died as well. But then the Bishop of Assisi awoke with a kind of premonition or a feeling that in fact Francis had passed away. So an extraordinary cycle of frescoes going left to right, top to bottom, and illustrating in six succinct scenes, these miraculous events of Francis, and bringing us into the modern era of painting.

Now just a quick honorable mention, if you move over to the chapel to the right, which was owned by the Peruzzi family, I just want to point out one particular detail, and it is in the fresco. So we’re now in the chapel to the right of the Bardi Chapel, called the Peruzzi Chapel. And the lowest scene on the right-hand side, the frescoes represents scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist on one wall, St. John the Evangelist on the other wall, and you can probably guess what the first name of the patron of the chapel was. You got it, John. So technically onomastic saints.

And in that lowest scene on the right-hand side, which depicts an event called the assumption of St. John the Evangelist, story goes that in last years of his life, John had built a cathedral in a city called Ephesus, in modern day Turkey, where Jesus essentially appeared to John and told him to prepare himself because Christ was coming to take him into heaven. John took the message literally, and supposedly dug a grave for himself inside of the cathedral and waited for death to come, where in fact, Jesus was instead indicating that he was coming to physically assume, body and soul, John into heaven. So the scene that you see is Jesus up there with the other 11 apostles. If you count up the heads, that’s how many you’ll find.

Pulling John up, that dark square on the ground, I think serves a two fold purpose. The first is, of course, the grave out of which John was pulled. And the second is a shadow, essentially, that’s being created as these rays of light emanating from Jesus’s head strike the body of John, and then the floor as well. But the real detail that I want you to focus on is that group of four figures to the left, to the far left-hand side. The first of which is bent over at about 90 degrees and looking into the hole. The second of which, the second figure instead at about 120 degrees, following the feet of John. It’s moving up. The third figure, essentially, erect with his hands up, sort of in awe and surprise of what’s going on, and then the fourth figure with hand to chin, meditating calmly upon the event taking place.

And if you haven’t picked up on it yet, what you are looking at is one of the earliest attempts at animation. In other words, having two dimensional figures actually moving, giving them anima, giving them soul. That’s the root of that word “animation”, technically speaking. And in fact, it’s the second earliest attempt of animation that I know of. The earliest was Giotto as well on the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, and we’ll discuss. So consider that while most other artists were struggling to make people look like people, Giotto has already graduated to flirting with animation in his paintings.

Now, you may also notice that the condition of these frescoes is worse than what you saw in the Bardi. And the reason is very simply because of technique. In fact, stay tuned because in my next podcast, I’m actually going to be discussing the mural techniques of fresco, and telling you their sort of virtues and vices as well. So stay tuned for more and learn about how we actually paint frescoes.

For more information on lectures and programs in the United States, art history tours in Italy, and for online video lectures, visit rockyruggiero.com.