Episode 37 – Florence: Santa Maria Novella – The Spanish Chapel – Part II

Dr. Ruggiero:
Buongiorno! 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.

Buongiorno, everyone, or buona sera. Today we are going to continue our discussion about the Spanish Chapel in the convent of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and you may remember from our last discussion that the Spanish Chapel was in fact the chapter house of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella, and we talked a bit about the history of the patronage of the actual chapel. Today, instead, we are focusing on the decoration itself, on the paintings and how beautiful these paintings are, but also addressing them as possible examples of what we call a post-Black Death style of painting. And again, I’ve reiterated this notion over and over over my last few podcasts, but just to refresh you, the idea essentially that the art produced after the Black Death was fundamentally different from what we saw before, that the optimism and the naturalism of artists like Giotto and the overwhelming beauty of artists like Duccio and Simone Martini was done away with, was somehow forgotten or lost in the art that was produced after.

In fact, that post Black Death style would be a style that would be rather two-dimensional, rather abstract, but more importantly rather pessimistic, dark with a general emphasis on violence, and all of that simply reflecting, of course, the negativism that came out of this cataclysmic event known as the Black Death. Well, let’s let the paintings do the talking. When you walk into the Spanish Chapel, the first thing you see is the altar directly in front of you and that large arch space on both sides and above the altar, already overwhelming and its sheer quantity of decoration. Well, you read that altar arch from lower left to lower right. In fact, if you look at the lower left, you’ll see the road to Calvary.

If you don’t remember, the artist here was named Andrea di Bonaiuto, better known to the world as Andrea da Firenze, right? We’re painting around the year 1365 to 1368. Starting here in this lower left-hand corner with the road to Calvary, we already get a pretty good impression of how much of the innovation introduced by Giotto has either been forgotten or conscientiously ignored, because we have the figure of Christ carrying his cross. Now, you remember in Sienese art, it is usually Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross, whereas in Florentine art it is usually Jesus, and here we are maintaining that tradition because it is Jesus who was carrying the cross. But at this point of the gospel narrative, Jesus was so broken that he was physically not capable of carrying the cross. Well, instead here it looks like Christ is in pretty good shape, and that cross that he is carrying is made of styrofoam or cardboard or something like that. In other words, we’re lacking that pathos. We’re lacking that human drama that was so imbued in the work that Giotto was introducing.

In fact, Jesus kind of casually looks back at this procession of three Marys, who do express a certain degree of grief as they look upon him, but again, nothing close to the pathos that we saw before. But I guess here the most stupefying thing is how we’ve gone back in time to a pre-Giotto period when we look at how the figures integrate into the architecture. The archway to the far left from which this whole procession emerges is releasing a certain scale of figure, but then behind it we have this, what we like to call in art history, doll house architecture, where essentially it looks like a cheap stage set they’ve just thrown in to give this implication of an urban setting. The figures inside or inside the walls of the city are on a completely different scale, sort of Lilliputians to Gullivers in the same scene, an artist not too concerned with the convincing realism of the painting itself.

Now, to the far right hand side, we’re in the same scene now, the carrying of the cross or the road to Calvary, you’ll notice it rather sophisticated motif, which is these two large horse heinies. Not the most sightly thing in the world, but very effective in leading our eyes up to the left and eventually to the top of the wall. The entire upper portion of this altar arch is occupied by what is the largest crucifixion painting in the city of Florence. I call it the Cecil B. DeMille production of the Florentine 14th century. A triple execution, which again is quite unusual in the city of Florence, Jesus at the center with the good thief to his right-hand side, the bad thief to his left-hand side, and all three are essentially surrounded by a throng of bystanders and witnesses and look-oners.

A lot of extras in the making of this particular movie, and the organization is somewhat traditional in the sense that all the good people are with the good thief to Jesus’s right hand side. You’ll see the swooning figure of Mary, although less swooning here and more contemplative upon the divine nature of Jesus Christ. You’ll see Longinus over there with the spear, and then instead all the bad people over to Jesus left-hand side surrounding the bad thief. We know that Andrea da Firenze was exposed to Giotto, because he’s using that same motif of what I called that Greek chorus and the Scrovegni Chapel. It is these angels who are flying above and around Jesus’s cross and, through their gestures, expressing heaven’s grief over this particular travesty.

We also have this traditional representation of the good thief at rest, whereas the bad thief is writhing around thrashing upon his cross. We’ve discussed in a past podcast of how that sort of gesturing is misinterpreted in the sense that most people think that the good thief is peaceful because he’s at peace with himself, whereas the bad thief instead writhing around because he is more concerned with his physical wellbeing. When, in reality, this artist, like Barna da Siena, if you remember from my podcast on San Gimignano, is also conscious of what was physically involved, the logistics of crucifixion, because the bad thief, if you look carefully at a reproduction or if you’re standing in the chapel right now, look at his left shin. You’ll see this large, gaping red wound. If you look just to the left of his legs, there is a soldier on horseback dressed in black. He looks like Sauron from Lord of the Rings, and he has this large mace in his hands, and he essentially is about to wallop the bad thief across the other shin.

In other words, the reason he’s writhing around is because one of his legs has been broken, and in the scene we are actually witnessing the breaking of the second leg. Curiously, above the bad thief, there is this little group of demons carrying a bowl prepared to collect his soul as soon as he dies. Instead, above the good thief on the other side, the angels. Now, the good thief at rest, and as I mentioned again in my podcast about San Gimignano, because he has already died. You don’t see the wounds anymore with your naked eye inside of the Spanish Chapel, but technically he had two large wounds on his shins, so the idea that his legs had already been broken, so he was already dead. We have that kind of tradition of resting good thief, tormented bad thief on the other side in this particular scene.

But I think what really captures your attention is this just large scale representation of the crucifixion. We go back to Giotto’s rendering of it in the Scrovegni Chapel, it was just a single scene with not that many people focusing, a primo piano, close up of Jesus’ suffering. Now, instead, we fall into this epic Ridley Scott/Cecil B. DeMille rendering of the story. Now, one thing that this artist does very well is to actually use the physical dimensions of the wall to kind of compliment the story itself. In other words, we started on the lower left with the road to Calvary, we’ve gone up to Golgotha, they hill, the place of the skull, which is what Golgotha means, which was this hill outside of Jerusalem reserved for public execution, and that’s where Jesus was crucified.

Now what we’re going to do is to descend down to the right-hand side to a scene which you don’t see often, and that is the descent into limbo. So to the lower right hand side, or to the exact right of the altar, you’ll see Jesus dressed in white stepping upon a door, under which is a demon looking up at him, and the demon is holding a key. Now, one of the big issues faced by the Catholic Church is what happened to all those good people who lived before Jesus? The Catholic Church maintains that in order to get into heaven, you must be baptized. Well, what about all those people who potentially fill in the pages of the Old Testament? They seem like pretty virtuous people. Were they condemned to a place called Limbo, L-I-M-B-O? Limbo is the place where virtuous unbaptized people go.

It’s kind of like an eternal waiting room, essentially, right? Purgatory is different. Purgatory is next to it, but you get out of purgatory. Purgatory is like a gym or a sauna where you’re working off your sins, eventually making your way up to heaven. Limbo is a place that theoretically you go to. In fact, today it’s reserved for unbaptized babies who are born with Original Sin, according to the Catholic Church, but have committed no other sin, so they’re not going to hell, but they can’t get into heaven because of this glitch that they have not been baptized, so there’s this place called limbo. Before Jesus, limbo was filled with many a Jewish prophet, with many a pagan philosopher, so the church had to address this issue. What happened to those people in limbo? The answer was that at some point, Jesus Christ went down and freed those souls.

The question, of course, was when did he do this? Well, in addition to the essentially unaccounted 30 years of Jesus’s life, there are also three days that are unaccounted for, and those are the three days that Jesus was in the tomb. That is from Good Friday evening to Easter Morning. What was Jesus doing in the tomb? Was he catching up on his reading? Was he binge-watching some Netflix series? Well, according to the Catholic Church, he kept himself busy by descending into limbo and freeing those souls. That’s exactly what you see in this particular scene. Now, no mention of the Hollywood version of Jesus karate kicking down that door, catching that demon off guard. It really is a comic scene, and when that door comes down, there’s this sudden surge forward, the people in limbo rushing towards Jesus, almost as if he was freeing a refugee camp or something like that, and many of the figures in limbo easily recognizable.

The first two that you see are number one and, too, the absolute number one and two, who are Adam and Eve, Adam with long white hair and a long white beard. I think if we could turn the volume up, the words coming out of his mouth would be, “Get me to a barber right now.” He’s been down there a very long time. Next to him, Eve dressed in pink. Behind Adam, a young man with a lamb, who is Abel, as in Cain and Abel, holding that land that he sacrificed God. Behind him, an old man holding a small wooden box, which is a stylized ark, so the man is Noah carrying his ark. To the far right-hand side, two more recognizable figures, one of whom is carrying stone tablets with pseudo Hebrew writing upon it and rays of light emanating from his head. He, of course, is Moses, and next to him, this is a very important figure to remember for my future podcast, a middle aged man with brown hair, brown beard, a crown on his head and a harp in his hands.

This of course is David as in King David, the historical first King of the 12 unified tribes of Israel, the musician, allegedly the author of the Book of Psalms shown in a very different way than we’re used to seeing him, which of course is the butt-kicking giant Slayer that we’re so used to when thinking of Michelangelo’s David instead. But keep that in mind. I’ll be referring to this figure in later podcasts when talking about the David image. And then directly below him, my favorite figure perhaps from the Middle Ages, and that is this rather dazed and confused john the Baptist looking as hippie, as ever as Woodstock refugee as ever. The long hair, the beard, lifting up his right thumb and pointing over to Jesus Christ, presumably reminding everyone in the room that, “Look, I told you he would come for us. I was right.” Probably the most popular man in limbo at this time, but instead in this particular image, seemingly not recognizing his cousin in a rather Cheech and Chong-ish type of way if you get my drift. I just find him absolutely hilarious in the scene.

Then to the right of all this, you have a cave with these Where the Wild Things Are type of monsters or demons looking upon Jesus with this very worried look, because essentially they’re concerned that Jesus might go all the way to Baghdad. In other words, that he might not stop in limbo, but might continue all the way down into the hallows of hell to free those souls. Then to the far right, you’ll see this figure looking somewhat like Santa Claus in hell being chewed upon or gnawed upon by a demon, and that is this 11th century Aristotelian Arab philosopher by the name of Averrose, who essentially was the archrival posthumously of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who, if you don’t know, was in fact a member of the Dominican Order. Whenever the Dominicans could, the Dominicans would insert a bit of negative PR for this poor Averrose figure who was seen again as the nemesis, at least his philosophy was because he was long dead, of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Now, if you look above, that is up on the ceiling or what we would technically call vaulting of the Spanish Chapel, in that triangular space directly above the crucifixion, you will find the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then to the right of it, you’ll see the famous noli me tangere, or the touch me not, which is when Mary Magdalene recognizes Jesus Christ there by the tomb and lunges for him. It’s kind of curious, in fact, that you see the resurrection just a few feet away from the noli me tangere, in other words, seeing the same figure appear more than once in the same space, which is a bit antiquated considering, again, the innovations introduced by Giotto.

You move your head, if you can strain your neck further back, or you can simply turn around and look at that triangular vault space above the entrance door where you will see the Ascension of Jesus Christ as he hovers in the air with the apostles and the Virgin Mary directly down below. In fact, it’s been written that this particular axis that is the entrance to alter axis of the Spanish Chapel focuses on the physical body of Jesus Christ, on the Corpus Domini. Not surprisingly, it in fact was the Dominican Order that was responsible for the Corpus Domini celebrations in the city of Florence. If you look at the very center of the vault, that is the center of the ceiling directly above your head, you’ll notice this relief sculpture of a lamb or of the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.

In fact, the entire room is dedicated to this theme, to the Body of Christ, whether it be the physical body or whether it be the spiritual body. In fact, if we now begin reading the frescoes on the opposite axis, in other words, looking up at the ceiling, we start reading down to your left-hand side and up in the triangular vault, you will see an image of the Pentecost, right? 50 days after Jesus’s Ascension, the Holy Spirit descended and baptized the apostles with fire, giving them the ability to speak in many tongues and to go out and proliferate Christianity. Now, not an easy thing to paint if you’re an artist, but one of the ways which it can be represented, and I think that Andrea da Firenze does it quite successfully. Instead of showing the apostles going out to the world, it is the world that comes to the apostles.

You see this building in the upper room of which the apostles are being baptized by the Holy Spirit, but then down below you see what looks to be a United Nations kind of assembly with figures wearing various costumes, many of them exotic, so the idea of the world coming to the apostles to hear the good news. Then below, one of the more important paintings inside of the Spanish Chapel, which is known as the Allegory of Christian Learning. It is essentially eight diagram of how the Dominicans see knowledge coming down from God, beginning with the Pentecost through the apostles and then down to us. What you see on that wall, on the flat wall directly in front of you, is an image in which a Dominican is seated centrally. That Dominican, recognizable because of his black cape and white robe, is none other than Saint Thomas Aquinas holding the Old Testament Book of Wisdom, so Aquinas is the nexus for knowledge. He is the brainiac, if you will, for the Dominican Order.

Above and around the throne, we have these seven female winged figures who represent the seven virtues. All knowledge, intelligence and wisdom should be virtuous, and you may remember back to my allegory of good and bad government where we have seen these particular figures in the past. Directly above the throne, a winged figure in red who represents love or charity, to your left or for a figure in white holding across representing the virtue of faith, and then by process of elimination, a female winged figure in green representing the virtue of hope.

Then to either side of the throne, we have the four cardinal virtues, beginning with a female figure holding an oak tree branch. If you don’t know, oak trees take quite a long time to grow, and she represents the virtue of temperance. Next to her, we have a woman with an open book, who represents wisdom. To the side of the throne, we have at winged figure holding a scepter and a crown, normally shown holding a sword and scales. She represents justice. Then the final winged figure holding a tower in her hand. A tower a type of fortification, so she is the virtue of fortitude, those virtues that should govern wisdom.

Then, seated to the left and right of Aquinas is an assembly of ten Old and New Testament authors. We’re going to read them and identify them left to right. In fact, when I’m in the Spanish Chapel with whomever it might be, one of the things that I always encourage is that people try to read the inscriptions that we find inside of these churches and chapels from the Middle Ages. Most of the time, people do not try to read them because they are presuming that it is all Greek to them when in reality it is all Latin, but that’s a separate discussion. If you do try to read, I think you’d be amazed at just how much you can figure out on your own.

The first figure to the far left-hand side in green is identified below in the white cartouche as S’ I-O-B Propheta, or as in Saint Job, the Old Testament Book of Job. Next to him, you don’t actually need to read the inscription because I think you recognize him from a description I gave just a second ago. A middle aged man with a crown on his head in a harp in his hand is of course David. In fact, he’s identified as Saint David Rex, which is Latin for king, and Propheta. He was a King and a prophet. The gentleman to the right of him holds a sword on his shoulder, and we of course know that the New Testament figure, Paul, holds a sword because he was beheaded when he was martyred, and Paul is the author of The Letters or The Epistles as they’re called.

Next to him, we have one of the four evangelists who was identified as Saint Marcus. Oftentimes in trying to identify evangelists, it really is just a process of elimination. Next to him, we have a young looking evangelist who’s identified as Saint Ioannes, or John the Evangelist. Now we’ve got two left, right? Go to the other side. We have Matthaeus the Evangelist, and then one left, and that is Luca, Saint Luca, so Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To the right, we have a figure in blue holding tablets with pseudo Hebrew writing and rays of light emanating from his head. This, of course, is Moses in the traditional way to see him. Next to him, we have another figure identified as Isaias. Now, remember when you’re trying to read these inscriptions, the letters Y and J and I are interchangeable. Isaias is actually the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, as in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah. Then finally to the right of him, we have a figure who is identified as Salomonis Rex, or King Solomon, the author of the Old Testament Book of Wisdom.

So the idea that, fortunately for us, we don’t have to read all these books because Aquinas has read them for us. Then Aquinas distributes that knowledge, brings it down to our level, right? That distribution of knowledge is then represented in this organization or this lining up a 14 female figures at the bottom of the fresco going left or right, and it’s pretty much divided right through the middle on this axis with Aquinas. The seven female figure sitting in these sort of choir stalls to the left represent the divinity studies, or what today we would call PhD or doctoral level studies.

The first holds a sword and an orb. She represents law, civil law. Next to her, a female figure with a church on her lap, and she represents canon law. The idea is you go to college, you graduate, then you go to law school, so these are the advanced degrees. The seven figures on the other side are instead of the ones that we are concerned with, beginning with the female figure in yellow. She is one of the seven so-called liberal arts, and that in fact is what these seven figures represent. She holds her right hand up with her index finger pointing upward, and she is counting because she is the liberal art of arithmetic. To the right of her, a female figure with a square which we use to draw 90 degree corners in architecture and geometry more importantly. She is the liberal art of geometry. Next to her, a woman with an amaryllis globe in her hand is astronomy.

Next to her, a woman with a handheld organ is music. To her, dressed in white, is logic. To the right of logic is a figure with a scroll with words on it. She represents grammar. Then to the right of her, another female figures speaking to a group of young people. We would call it public speaking because the actual name is one that has kind of derogatory connotation today. She is rhetoric. Today when something is rhetorical, we consider it to be redundant, but in the ancient world, like in the Renaissance, it wasn’t so much what you said as much as how you said it. Now, the idea that that knowledge flows through these particular subjects and down to the Dominicans, who would have been sitting just below.

Interesting note, by the way, below all of the female figures are male figures who represent the historic inventors of the particular discipline. My personal favorite is the gentleman sitting below music who looks like Chewbacca from the Star Wars series. He is an ancient blacksmith by the name of Tubalcain who invented music while banging away at his anvil and recognizing these repeating sounds. Then again, below, the Dominicans sitting. The way I’ve always imagined this chapel when it was in use seven centuries ago was almost like a beauty parlor, these images of those large cone shaped hairdryers. Imagine the Dominicans sitting now and all this knowledge from the Holy Spirit through the apostles, through Aquinas, through the Old and New Testament authors, through the different subjects then permeating into their brains and just making them smarter and smarter. But the idea is that all the knowledge in the world is useless unless you can apply it to obtaining salvation.

That’s what we’re going to do on the opposite side of the chapel. In other words, the knowledge that comes down from God all the way to us, but useless unless that knowledge can lead us back up to God, and that’s exactly what these Dominicans, what these teachers want to show us. So now we switch sides. We simply turn around and look at the opposite side of the chapel where we find the so-called Triumph of the Church fresco, also known as the Via Vertitatis. That’s the Way of Truth. If we read the other wall from top to bottom, this wall will instead read from bottom to top. The allegory begins with this pink church that you see to the lower left-hand side that looks suspiciously like the Duomo of Florence.

Well, consider that when these frescoes were done in the 1360s, very little of the church itself had been completed. Only one portion of the complex actually stood, and it was the campanile, the bell tower. You may remember this from my podcast on Florence Cathedral. If you look at the painting, the companile’s in there, it’s just been moved out of its actual location to the far left-hand side and is the only portion of the architecture to have green, white and pink marble decorating it, the cathedral all in pink because it’s hypothetical. It’s speculative. There wasn’t enough there to actually know what it was going to look like, but it gives us an approximation of what Florentines thought Florence cathedral would look like in the middle of the 1300s.

Now, at the center of the church you’ll see the Pope, recognizable because of his tiara, because of the pastoral that he holds, and to the left of the Pope, we have these religious leaders, bishops and Cardinals, and the different monastic orders of the Catholic Church. To the right of the Pope, instead, we have earthly leaders, secular rulers, who wear crowns and hold swords and hold orbs instead. At the feet of the Pope, we have sheep, which of course represent the faithful, the congregation. Then in front of the sheep or below them depending how you’re looking at it, we have these black and white dogs, perhaps the most pleasant of puns for the Dominicans themselves.

The Dominicani, or in Latin, Domines, “Lord,” Canes, “dogs.” The Dominicans liked to see themselves as the watchdogs of the Lord, and because they wear black and white, they often represent themselves as black and white dogs in these paintings. If you look to the right of that crowd, you’ll actually see the dogs being led out. There’s a Dominican with a wand in his hand, which actually represents Saint Dominic himself, the founder of the order, ordering these dogs to attack wolves. If the dogs are the Dominicans, the wolves instead represent heretics, and you may remember back to our discussion of how the Dominican order exists for one reason. That was to fight against heresy, and they’re ripping these wolves apart, bringing sheep back into the fold. The gentleman next to him is another very famous Dominican named Peter Martyr, and we’ll talk more about him in a later podcast, but he’s one of the big celeb Dominicans. Then to the right you have another Dominican holding a book and that is Aquinas holding up his masterpiece, which is the Summa Theologica.

The reaction of the people looking up and listening to Aquinas is extraordinary. There’s one gentleman in the lower right tearing up his book, because obviously he’s been reading the wrong thing the whole time. Another gentleman shushing the guy next to him because he wants to hear what Aquinas has to say. Another dropping to his knees instantly because he reveres, obviously, this Dominican enlightenment. Then one figure, my favorite in the back, who covers both his ears with his hands because he just doesn’t want to hear it. So through the teachings of the Dominicans, fighting against heresy, preaching to the people, educating the people with their writing. Now we move our eyes diagonally up into the left where more Dominicans are leading the Faithful away from the path of vice, which you see on the right-hand side. You see sloth, you see pride, these figures representing vices, and instead up to the pearly whites, the Gates of Heaven clearly represented with Peter standing inside, keys in hand.

To the left of that gate, we have this congregation of figures already in heaven, many of whom we’ve already met. Noah is up there, Adam is up there, David is up there, but new Christians saved as well and saints as well. Lawrence with his barbecue grill, and one very conspicuous figure, a female Dominican, a nun dressed in the habit of the Secondary Order. That of course is Saint Catherine of Siena positioned conspicuously right above the dome, the celebrity Dominican who was tried and found innocent of heresy inside this very room. They’re all looking up at the figure of Jesus Christ who sits in throne more like a god than a man, holding keys in one hand, the keys of Heaven, a book in the other, and then below him the symbols of the four evangelists: the eagle representing Saint John, the ox representing Saint Luke, the winged lion representing Saint Mark, and then the angel representing Saint Matthew, and all four of the symbols covered with eyeballs. Gross, yes, but at the same time representing the omnipotency of the gospels, of the writings of the New Testament.

The choirs of angels standing there in triumph to either side of Jesus, the Virgin Mary dressed in white as the Book of Revelation describes her on Judgment Day, so the idea that all that knowledge coming down from God, filtered through the Dominicans themselves through the writings of the Old and New Testament, and then most importantly through the direction of the Dominicans leading us back up to salvation at the right hand of Christ in the imagery. Absolutely brilliant, almost diagram type art inside of this particular room, and as I mentioned before, it is perhaps the most quintessential of Dominican works of art on this planet, literally giving you a sort of step by step diagram on how to use knowledge and intelligence to obtain your salvation.

There you go. The Spanish Chapel, which is as packed with information as it is beautiful, and again, whether or not it has to do with the Black Death in terms of this moving away from Giotto and that free flowing style, or whether it’s just the fact that we’re in a Dominican church and convent, I think you got the picture here that the Dominicans were rather severe and intense. One interesting note that before the fun loving Jesuits took over the Holy Office of the Inquisition, the Dominicans were actually in charge and got a little carried away in their persecution of heretics to the point where in fact the office was removed from them and given over to the more lovable Franciscans for a while. It kind of gives you a sense of how the context of the art, but more importantly even the patrons of the art that we’ll be discussing does in fact influence its appearance.

Okay, we’ll finish off there with the art of the Spanish Chapel. In our next podcast, we’ll be moving on to another of the medieval structures associated with the Black Death, and that is the grain market turned church of Orsanmichele in the city of Florence and talk about its role in the transition between the Gothic and the Renaissance world, so stay tuned for more.

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