A Legend of St Helena, the Discoverer of the True Cross

The Basilica of the Holy Cross, the main church of the Franciscan Order in Florence, was founded on May 3rd, the feast of the Finding of the Cross, in 1294. Last September, on the Exaltation of the Cross, I posted pictures of the frescoes which the painter Agnolo Gaddi added to the main choir around the year 1385, a cycle that depicts the Legend of the True Cross. The Franciscans were extremely important patrons of the arts in that era, and the basilica is so rich in artworks that it would take several posts to list and describe them all. Here are some pictures from one of the side-chapels, which I am posting today because they are marginally connected to the story of the Finding of the Cross.

The Bardi di Vernio chapel, located in the left transept, is dedicated to Pope St Sylvester I, and was decorated with stories of his life around the year 1335 by Maso di Banco; very little is known about this painter, but he is generally regarded as one of the most talented of Giotto’s followers. (“Maso” was a common Tuscan nickname for “Tommaso.”) This fresco, which is obviously very damaged, depicts the story that the Emperor Constantine, still a pagan and a persecutor of the Church (which he never was in reality) had leprosy, and had been advised by his doctors to bath in the blood of infants to cure it. Many Romans did believe in this kind of sympathetic magic, and while this particular story is certainly a later legend, it is by no means wholly implausible on this point. In this version, which was also read in the Roman Breviary before the Tridentine reform, Constantine was so moved by the weeping of the infants’ mothers that he refusing to commit this terrible crime. One of the great innovations of Giotto’s painting was the use of facial expressions to tell his story, which we see here imitated by Maso in the group of mothers on the right.

The Apostles Peter and Paul appear to Constantine in a dream, and tell him to seek out the Pope, St Sylvester, who is hiding from the persecution on Mt Soracte to the north of Rome, and that the Pope will cure him of his leprosy.

On the left side, Constantine meets Pope Sylvester, who shows him an image of the two Apostles; since he recognizes them as the men who had appeared to him in his dream, he agrees to be baptized, at which his leprosy is indeed cured. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The story that follows (which in the chapel is directly beneath the previous one) is the part of the legend that connects with the Finding of the Cross. Constantine’s mother, the dowager Empress Helena, holds a debate to determine which of the two monotheistic religions, Christianity, represented by the Pope and his cardinals (on the left), or Judaism, represented by a group of rabbis (on the right), is true. When the rabbis have been bested by the Pope at every point in the debate (which is recounted at wearisome length in The Golden Legend), one of them decides to prove the truth of Judaism by whispering what he claims to be the Divine Name into the ear of a ferocious bull, which immediately dies. However, Sylvester then whispers into its ear “O name of cursing and death, go out by the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name I say to thee: o bull, arise, and return in all mildness to thy flock.” The bull immediately comes back to life and walks away. Helena and all those present, including the rabbis, become Christians; she then goes on her great expedition to the Holy Land, where she discovers the site of Mt Calvary and the relics of the True Cross. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

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Simone Martini’s Frescos of the Life of St Martin

A document dated to March of 1312 attests that an Italian cardinal named Gentile Partino, a member of the Franciscan Order, commissioned a chapel to be added to the lower basilica of St Francis in Assisi, dedicated to St Martin of Tours, whose feast is kept today. Later that spring, His Eminence was in Siena, and commissioned the painter Simone Martini, a native of that city, to go to Assisi and decorate the chapel with a series of frescos of the titular Saint’s life. The cardinal himself died in October of that year; Martini would complete his work in the chapel in three phases, ending in 1318. Martin is one of the very first confessors to be widely venerated in the West, partly because of a biography of him written by a contemporary and friend named Sulpicius Severus. The stories presented here are partly based on it, but also on traditional legends which are not in Sulpicius’ work. 

The cycle begins with the most famous story of Martin’s life, that when he was a young soldier serving near Amiens, and still only a catechumen, he met a half-naked beggar, and having nothing else to share with him, cut his own cloak in two and gave the beggar one of the halves.

That night, Christ appeared to him in a dream holding the piece of the cloak, saying “Martin, while still a catechumen, covered me with this garment.” This direct quote from Sulpicius’ biography is the first antiphon of Matins of St Martin.

Although it may seem like a folk-etymology, it is actually true that the word “chapel” derives from the Latin word for cloak, “cappa”, in reference to the relic of St Martin’s cloak. As explained by the Catholic Encyclopedia, “This cape, or its representative, was afterwards preserved as a relic and accompanied the Frankish kings in their wars, and the tent which sheltered it became known also as cappella or capella. In this tent Mass was celebrated by the military chaplains (capellani). When at rest in the palace the relic likewise gave its name to the oratory where it was kept, and subsequently any oratory where Mass and Divine service were celebrated was called capella (in Latin), chapelle (in French), chapel.”

Sulpicius then says that Martin continued to served as a soldier for two years. His military service is anachronistically represented here by the medieval rite of the investiture of a knight. 

As the barbarians invade Gaul, Martin renounces his military service before the emperor Julian the Apostate, in order to dedicate his life to serving Christ.

The cycle now jumps over the years when Martin lived as a monk to his episcopacy, which began in 371. The story shown here, which is in the Golden Legend, but not in Sulpicius, tells that Martin had a request to make of the emperor Valentinian, something which the latter did not wish to grant, and therefore forbade Martin entrance to the palace on two occasions. After a week of fasting and wearing of a hairshirt, Martin was told by an angel to return, and he was able to gain access to the throne room. The emperor was at first greatly angered by this, but then his throne was engulfed in flames, and his majesty singed on his hind parts. Chastened by this miracle, he offered Martin everything he intended to ask for, but in the Golden Legend’s telling, Martin inexplicably refused it.

Martin raises a man from the dead; the first responsory at Matins refers to the tradition that he performed such a miracle three times. However, the Roman version of the lessons does not include a passage found in many others, that he himself said that he had not received such great grace in the episcopacy as he had before it, since he raised two men from the dead before he became a bishop, but only one after.

As he celebrates Mass, a globe of fire appears over him. Commenting on the liturgical texts for his feast day, William Durandus writes (Rat. Div. Off. VII, 37), “He is called ‘equal to the Apostles’, not, as some people think, because he raised people from the dead, since many other martyrs and confessors have done the same; nor because of the multitude of his miracles, but especially because of one particular miracle... (while he was celebrating Mass) a globe of fire appeared over his head, by which it was shown that the Holy Spirit had descended upon him… as He came upon the Apostles at Pentecost. Whence he is rightly called ‘equal to the Apostles,’ and is indeed equal to them in the liturgy.”

A famous legend of St Ambrose tells that he once fell into a deep sleep for several hours during services in church, and on waking, told his clergy that he had been present for the funeral of St Martin in the city of Tours. (Martin actually died in the same year as Ambrose, but 7 months later.)

The death of St Martin...

and his burial; at top, his soul is accompanied to heaven by angels. 

This last part of the fresco cycle represents Cardinal Partino kneeling before St Martin as a sign that he is offering the chapel to him.

The large arch that leads into the chapel is decorated with eight portraits of Saints: Anthony of Padua and Francis... 

Clare and Elizabeth of Hungary

Louis IX, the king of France, and Louis of Toulouse

Mary Magdalene and Catherine of Alexandria.

The Second Oldest Altarpiece of St Francis of Assisi

Last week, for the feast of St Francis of Assisi, I posted about the oldest known altarpiece of him, the work of an artist named Bonventura Berlinghieri, which is dated to 1235, only seven years after Francis’ canonization. As a follow-up, here is the second oldest such work, known as the Bardi altarpiece or panel, after the chapel where it has been kept since 1595 within the Franciscan order’s church in Florence, the basilica of the Holy Cross. For a long time, the artist’s name was unknown, and he was simply called the Master of the Bardi St Francis. It is now generally accepted as the work of a Florentine painter called Coppo di Marcovaldo, who lived from roughly 1225-76; about 10 other works of his survive, almost all in various parts of Tuscany, but only three are attributed to him with absolute certainty. The painting is dated to around 1245-50; if the attribution to Coppo is correct, that would mean he made it when he was about 20-25 years old. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Francesco Bini, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

The Saint appears in the middle, wearing the Franciscan habit, showing the stigmata as he gives a blessing, and holding a book. The border around him is populated with Franciscan friars. The inscription above his head reads, “Hunc exaudite perhibentem dogmata vitae. - Listen to this man who offers the teachings of life.” Although the body of St Francis is still artificially elongated in the manner of the Byzantine iconographic style which prevailed in Italy at the time, the proportions of the head, hands and feet are much better rendered than in Berlinghieri’s work.

The Bardi panel is similar in form to Berlinghieri’s, but more elaborate, with 20 stories from the Saint’s life, where the other has only six. Some of these are taken from Thomas of Celano’s biography, the first, written in 1228-9, very shortly after the canonization, and do not appear in the version by St Bonaventure which officially replaced it in 1266. They run counterclockwise from the upper left side. Here we see St Francis delivered from prison after being captured during a battle between Assisi and its perennial rival, nearby Perugia, and his renunciation of all his worldly possessions in the presence of his parents and of the bishop of Assisi.

Francis designs the habit of his followers (not yet an order in the proper sense) in the presence of the bishop of Assisi, and hears the words from the reading of the Gospel which will inspire the Franciscan rule and way of life. At the lower right, he removes his shoes as a symbol of his embrace of poverty.

Francis and his followers receive approval of the Rule from Pope Innocent III, and he makes the first Christmas creche.

Preaching to the birds, and to the Saracens in the presence of the Sultan.

Francis rescues a lamb which is grazing among goats, and exchanges his habit to rescue two lambs that are being taken to slaughter.

Francis receives the stigmata, and does public penance for improperly breaking a fast.

Francis teaches the lepers, holding one on his knee and washing the feet of another; he appears to Brother Monaldo during a general chapter of the order held at Arles in southern France, while St. Anthony is preaching.

The remaining panels (those on the right side) are to be read upwards from the bottom. During his funeral, as his soul ascends to heaven, Francis heals a girl with a twisted neck and several demoniacs.

Pope Gregory IX canonizes him; he prevents the wreck of a ship sailing out of Ancona on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

Pilgrims bring offerings of candles to his tomb; he heals a man suffering from gout.

The Oldest Altarpiece of St Francis

St Francis of Assisi died late in the evening on October 3, 1226, at the age of about 44, and was canonized in July of 1228 by Pope Gregory IX. His order was almost from the start among the most important patrons of the arts, especially in its Italian heartlands of Umbria and Tuscany, and there is hardly a town of any size in those regions that does not (or did not formerly) boast some interesting and beautiful artwork made to honor their founder or one of their other Saints. I add the words “or did not formerly” because with the coming of the age of revolutions, and the suppression of so many churches of the religious orders, many of these works are now lost or removed to museums.

The church of St Francis in the little town of Pescia in Tuscany, about half-way between Lucca and Pistoia, had a medieval painting of the Saint, a work whose style was by the 17th century as utterly out of fashion as a painting could be. A local artist named Alessandro Bardelli (1583-1633) was therefore hired to make a new painting as a frame for it, which would display the original central image of Francis, but surrounded by a group of angels. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 4.0)

In the 19th century, when Bardelli’s work had in turn fallen out of fashion, a painter and art critic also from that area named Michele Ridolfi (1793-1854), removed the frame to reveal the complete original image. The Italian Wikipedia article about the painting says that the date (1235) and the signature of the artist, Bonaventura Berlinghieri (1210 ca. - 1287), around St Francis’ feet, were covered by the frame, but in the photograph above, they are clearly visible. If the article is correct, then either the painting was positioned differently within the frame, or the aperture has subsequently been enlarged. In any case, Berlinghieri’s work, made just 7 years after Francis’ canonization, turns out to be the oldest known painting of him and various episodes from his life. It is a work very much in the style of Byzantine icons, the style which prevailed in central Italy at the time, and which would be superseded largely under the impetus which the Franciscans themselves gave to the more naturalistic style of later artists like Cimabue and Giotto. (Click image to enlarge.)

St Francis is depicted in his habit of sackcloth and rope, holding the book of the Gospels, and with the stigmata clearly visible, although on his raised right hand it has faded. Six episodes from his life are depicted, running clockwise from the upper right: the founding of the Third Order; the healing of a crippled man; the healing of a possessed; the healing of a little girl with a bent neck; the preaching to the birds; the reception of the stigmata.

The Legend of the True Cross, by Agnolo Gaddi

Around the year 1385, the Florentine painter Agnolo Gaddi completed a cycle of paintings in the choir of the Franciscan basilica of the Holy Cross in his native city. These frescoes, which are very well preserved, are the earliest surviving Italian example of a cycle dedicated to the Legend of the True Cross, based on the stories collected in Bl. Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend. Gaddi’s work is not as refined as that of the most famous version of this cycle, the one by Piero della Francesca in the basilica of St Francis in Arezzo. In a manner typical of the elaborately decorative International Gothic style, he tends to put too many figures into too small a space, which makes it difficult to read the story, especially in such a tall space. (The vault of the choir is almost 40m above the floor.) His work has also been overshadowed by some of the church’s many other artistic treasures, a few of which will be mentioned below. The eight panels are arranged in chronological order, first down the right wall, then down the left.

At the top of the first panel, Adam’s son Seth receives from the Archangel Michael a branch from the Tree of Life which grows in the Garden of Paradise; in the lower part, he plants the branch in the mouth of his dead father, who lies in his grave, with Eve mourning to the right. From this branch grows the tree which will become the wood of the Cross; the depiction of a skull at the base of Christ’s Cross derives from this legend. (In Gaddi’s time, the principles of one-point linear perspective had yet to be worked out; this is why Seth appears to be so much larger in the background than in the foreground, which should of course be done the other way around.)

Second panel – The tree lives until the time of Solomon, when it is cut down and part of it used to make a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, she “sees in the Spirit that the Savior of the world will be hung upon this wood”; she therefore refuses to step on it, but kneels in adoration. She then tells Solomon that someone will be hung on that wood, by whose death the kingdom of the Jews will be destroyed; the king therefore has it buried deep in the earth. (One version of the story adds that the queen had webbed feet, which were made normal by touching the wood.)

Third panel – The pool called Probatica which is mentioned in John 5, 2 is built on the place where the wood is buried; shortly before the time of Christ’s passion, the wood floats to the surface, and is used to make a cross, the one which will become His. In the background in the upper left are seen the sick people waiting for their chance to descend into the pool.

In the fourth panel, the narration switches direction, moving from right to left. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, discovers three crosses buried on the site of Mt Calvary; in order to determine which one is that of Christ, a dying woman is brought to the site, and completely healed at the touch of the third one. (The basilica of the Holy Cross was officially founded on May 3, 1294, the feast of the Finding of the Cross.)

Fifth panel, uppermost on the left side of the choir – St Helena brings the relics of the Cross into the newly constructed basilica of the Anastasis, which is usually called the Holy Sepulcher in the West. (The absence of linear perspective is especially notable in the improbably crooked buildings in the background.)

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The Miracles of St Bernardine of Siena

During the Jubilee year of 1450, Pope Nicholas V canonized the Franciscan St Bernardine (Bernardino) of Siena (1380-1444), who had died six years earlier, and whose feast is kept today. This was an unusually quick process for the era, especially considering how varied the Saint’s career had been: he had preached all over Italy, performed countless miracles, produced a large body of writings, and served as the general of the reformed branch of his order, known as the Strict Observance, or “Osservanza” in Italian. The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints tells a funny story regarding his process, in reference to one of his contemporaries, Thomas of Florence, a collaborator in the reform. Thomas died in 1447, and many within the order wished that his cause for canonization might be joined to Bernardine’s. But since this would certainly have delayed the latter, St John of Capistrano went to Thomas’ tomb (which was in the order’s church in Rieti) and ordered him in the name of holy obedience to stop performing miracles until Bernardine had been canonized. This did in fact happen, and Thomas remains a blessed.

St Bernardine of Siena, 1450-60, by the Sienese painter Sano di Pietro.

St Bernardine is especially well known for promoting devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. In his time, the upper two-thirds of Italy (basically everything north of the kingdom of Naples) was divided into many small states, which were very often at war with each other, and just as often rent by civil wars. Bernardine was extraordinarily successful in bringing peace to and between these states by preaching on the Holy Name, and would usually end his sermons by holding up a painted tablet with an IHS monogram on it, surrounded by the sun. (Monograms of this sort can still be seen to this day on the outside of public buildings all over Italy.) In many places, there was no church large enough to accommodate the crowds that gathered to hear him, and so he had to preach in the public squares, which is all the more remarkable when one considers that (as is often seen in paintings of him, including the one above) he had lost all his teeth.

The IHS monogram on the façade of the city hall of St Bernardine’s native city. Image from Wikimedia Commons, © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of the places that had benefitted very greatly from Bernardine’s services as a peacemaker, and which nourished a great devotion to him, was the little Umbrian city of Perugia, the long-time rival of St Francis’ native place, Assisi. (It was during one of the frequent little wars with Perugia that Francis was captured and imprisoned in 1202, leading to his conversion and embrace of holy poverty.) As the Jubilee of 1475 approached, the Franciscan friars of Perugia commissioned a set of paintings of his miracles, which were made to be mounted on two large doors that covered a statue of the Saint in a small but very beautiful oratory dedicated to him. These panels are now displayed in the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia, one of the best museums in all of Italy.

The oratory of St Bernardine in Perugia, built in 1452, only two years after his canonization. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by AliasXX00, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The group of painters who produced the panels is collectively referred to as “the workshop of 1473”, and includes two particularly famous names. One is Pietro Vannucci, by far the best known and most successful artist in the city, and therefore usually just called “Perugino – the man from Perugia.” (1448 ca. – 1523) The other is his assistant Bernardino di Betto Betti, who was generally known by the nickname “Pinturicchio – tiny little painter”, from his unusually small stature. (Born in Perugia ca. 1452; died in Siena, 1513.)

One of Piero della Francesca’s most famous paintings, The Flagellation of Christ, 1459-60. Notice how the composition is dominated by the architectural elements, as is also the case in the paintings shown below.

An interesting aspect of the project is how much it evidently owes to the style of Piero della Francesca (1415 ca. – 1492), their almost-fellow Umbrian. (Almost, because his native place is in the modern region of Tuscany, but borders on Umbria.) In six of the eight panels, the scene is either indoors or taking place in front of a building, and the architecture dominates the image; in the remaining two, roughly two-thirds of the scene is sky and countryside. The colors are bright, and the human figures cast shadows, but just barely. Pinturicchio had originally been trained as a miniaturist, doing very small images for the illustration of devotional books, and brought his training for finely drawn detail into the style of Perugino’s workshop; this is evident in the trees and the elaborate decorations on the buildings. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, or public domain)

St Bernardine heals a young girl who suffers from an ulcer. (Perugino) The large structure that provides the backdrop is an idealized restoration of the arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, and partly reproduces the inscription on it.

St Bernardine raises up a young man whom he finds dead under a tree as he is traveling to Verona. (Perugino) The countryside shown in the background is very much like that of Umbria, but notice how the artist introduces the rather exotic looking and impossibly balanced cliff structure for contrast.

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