MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - WA03.jpg

Category Fresco
Origin: artist/workshop Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Assistant
Date 14C/2
Reference No
Size
Provenance Cistercian Abbey of San Galgano, Montesiepi
Present Location Oratory of San Galgano
Bibliography Borsook 1968, 73

Meiss 1970, 80-3; Rowley 1929, 107-27; Florence 1990, 50
Illustration From Florence 1990, ill 23; Borsook 1968, ill 28
Other illustrations Rowley 1929, ill 1

Country Italy
Description:
Bernard? A round chapel was built on the summit of a hill overlooking the Cistercian abbey of San Galgano on the spot where St Galgano was buried. The early fresco painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Assistant in c 1334 was of The Virgin in Majesty, a crowned empress holding a scepter and orb, the entire image with Eve lying at the Virgin's feet probably inspired by Bernard's vision of the exalted Virgin in Canto 32 of Dante's Divine Comedy. This was later softened by the alteration by an Assistant of Pietro Lorenzetti, as was the Annunciation fresco lower down on the same wall. The second painter eliminated the imperial attributes and showed Mary holding the Child, rendering her less exalted and more maternal, in the same way as the Annunciation picture was made less emotional and more pious. On each side of the Virgin are a group of angels bearing flowers and candles, and below them the four saints, the two Johns, Peter, and Paul who sit on a kind of choir bench. On either side of Eve are two kneeling females representing the dual aspects of Charity, the Temporal and the Spiritual, and behind them two saints in white cowls, who have been identified as the two Cistercian Blesseds, Jacomo da Montieri and Ranieri da Belforte, but it is more likely that one of them is Bernard and the other Galgano. The pope may be Lucius III who canonized Galgano, and the two bishops on the right may be Ugo Saladini and Ildebrando Panocchi. The inscription reads: FEI PECCHATO P(ER)CHE PASSIONE SOFERSE CRISTO CHE QUESTRA REINA PORTO NEL VENTRE A NOSTRA REDENTIONE.