Main content
Course: Medieval Europe + Byzantine > Unit 10
Lesson 5: Gothic art in ItalyBerlinghieri, St. Francis altarpiece
Bonaventura Berlinghieri, St. Francis Altarpiece, 1235 (Church of San Francesco, Pescia, Italy). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- What are the other five apron scenes and what do they depict?(6 votes)
- Top left: Praying Francis receives stigmata
mid left: preaching Francis and the Birds
bottom left: unidentified
Top right: the miracle of the pear
Middle right: healing a leper
bottom right: casting out demons(2 votes)
- Are stigmatas always recieved from the Holy Spirit or a seraph? Do they have to be seen by the receiver of stigmata?(5 votes)
- From what I understand, it has been reported by many people, but the only notable and persistent cases are St. Francis of Assisi as mentioned already, and St. Pio of Pietrelcina who experienced stigmata in the first half of the 20th century, this case is special because his wounds never became infected. There are other cases of stigmata which have gained acceptance though they are often ephemeral. St. Paul is thought to have possibly been a stigmatic either through an act of penance or through the Holy Spirit; his writings indicate he bore the wounds of Christ, but not how or why.
Other instances of stigmata have been reported, often on Holy Thursday and Good Friday (leading up to the resurrection). Catholics who choose to experience crucifixion as penance, or to feel closer to Christ, such as a particular group in the Philippines, should technically be referred to as stigmatics, though not specifically endowed with them by the Holy Spirit. And one more fun fact, 80% of reported stigmata occurs in women - take that as you may.(4 votes)
- Why do they say Byz-antine instead of By-zan-tine.(4 votes)
- Why do Brits say 'been' like 'bean' but 'Mericans say it like the name 'Ben'? It's simply a cultural-linguistic divide. And a subtle one at that. Also, non-staccato consonants have a tendency to develop a slur between syllables that we frequently use when we stringing words together subconsciously. Try saying Byzantine without the 'z' and you will find this weird clash of vowels that sounds awful.(3 votes)
- What is the order of Franciscans? Are they still around? Do they wear their hair like St. Francis? What's the reason for that hairstyle?(4 votes)
- Baba, the Franciscans are still around. Franciscan orders flourish not only in Catholicism, but in many other Christian denominations. These are people who agree to follow the regulations of the order, known as the "Rule of St. Francis" (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06208a.htm).
Some members of the Franciscans wear the tonsure (what Christians call a religious haircut), but others do not. Many religions including Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism encourage or discourage cutting or shaving all or part of the head in special hairstyles, mostly to encourage humility and promote renunciation of vanity and worldly cares.(3 votes)
- Why is a man's naked body rendered with a such a strange sense of anatomy (as at4:45) in Gothic panel paintings?(3 votes)
- Why when I click on "seraph" does only a Walmart survey pop up? I don't want to take a survey, especially for a business, studying here ...(2 votes)
- You might have an extension/plugin installed on your computer or browser that is throwing adware into the text on websites you visit.(3 votes)
- What is the reason for the shaving of the head during this era?(3 votes)
- In one of my art classes the Professor stated that that piece of art was actually early, early Renaissance , Is that correct? because this looks like Gothic to me....(3 votes)
Video transcript
(piano music) - [Voiceover] When we think
about the great tradition of religious painting in the West, the great Christian tradition, we often think of painting on panels. But where did that begin? - [Voiceover] We begin
to really see painting in the West in the 12th
and 13th centuries. - [Voiceover] And one of the
most famous examples of this is an altarpiece by
Bonaventura Berlinghieri, known as the St. Francis Altarpiece. - [Voiceover] This is a
life-sized altarpiece, so Francis is about five feet high. It would have stood on an altar and would have been the focus of religious meditation, of prayer. - [Voiceover] And although the depiction of the figure of Francis
is a common height, this is not a naturalistic depiction. - [Voiceover] And that's
part of the point, is this is within 10 years of Francis's death and canonization. He's just been made a saint, and so part of the purpose of this image is for his followers to
show his saintliness, the miracles that he performed, to depict him as a person
who is blessed by God. - [Voiceover] So who was Francis? He'd been born into a prosperous family, but as a young man, he
had had some kind of intense religious vision, and he renounced his worldly possessions. According to some stories, he actually took the
fine clothes off his back and threw them back at his father. - [Voiceover] So what was important for Francis and for his followers was to live a life of poverty, to
follow the example of Christ. Now the Franciscans, the order that comes from Francis's teaching, was a mendicant order,
they lived by begging, and they lived in the
relatively new cities that existed in Italy. - [Voiceover] This was
a moment of transition between this period that we know as the medieval or the Middle Ages, and what will eventually
become the Renaissance. - [Voiceover] And in
the new cities in Italy and elsewhere in Europe,
we have the beginning of a merchant class, the beginning of an accumulation of wealth which will help to power the Renaissance. So what are we learning about Francis when we look at Berlinghieri's altarpiece? We're convinced of his spirituality. He is placed within this gold background, this gold leaf that's
been applied to the wood that is the support for the altarpiece. - [Voiceover] And this
is the light of heaven, Very much in the medieval tradition, the artist has been
perfectly happy to distort the proportions of the
body, lengthening him. - [Voiceover] Not only is he elongated, but he seems to almost
float about the ground. There's a weightlessness to him. The brown drape that he wears, that's adopted by the monks in his order, hides his body underneath. We don't have an interest
in the human body. This is not a man of the body, that we're seeing Francis as spirit here. - [Voiceover] You know, that brown robe and the simple belt made out of rope and the fact that he's
not wearing any shoes, he's barefoot, all of these things are symbols of his
humbleness in the world, of the way in which he
renounced the world's wealth, the world's pleasures, to live a life that was as close to Christ's as possible. And what he's showing
us as he lifts his hand and exposes his palm is the stigmata. - [Voiceover] These are
wounds that Christ received on the cross that are
appearing miraculously on the body of Francis. And you can tell that it
was important to the monks, the Franciscans, who
commissioned this altarpiece, and this is the earliest
dated Franciscan altarpiece, but you can tell that it
was important to the monks to highlight the stigmata,
this incredible miracle that Francis received. But there are lots of
things about Francis's life that made him very popular. - [Voiceover] And we can see those things depicted in the apron scenes that surround the central figure of Francis. If we start in the upper left, you see St. Francis
kneeling in the wilderness. This is a very schematic representation, very much in this late medieval style. You can see that he's
looking up and praying to the seraphim, that
is, this angelic figure, and it is at this moment that Francis has this vision and then
receives the stigmata. Below, we see a very important moment for Francis's followers, and this is Francis preaching to the birds, so this idea of preaching
to the lowliest creatures resonated with Francis's message
of preaching to the poor. - [Voiceover] It's important to note that the Franciscans and the
other mendicant orders would often build churches
on the outskirts of cities in order to reach the poor that lived not in the city center but at its edges. I love the representation of
the preaching to the birds, and I love especially
that small little mountain that is this landscape,
this stand-in for nature, but it's so stylized. Now the four remaining apron scenes are all representations
of posthumous miracles, that is, miracles that were associated with Francis after his death, and they have to do largely
with healing the disabled, or in the case of this
scene at the bottom right, of a exorcism over moving of demons. - [Voiceover] And those
scenes where we see St. Francis healing are meant to help identify him with
Christ and the apostles, and thereby also to convince us of his saintliness, his holiness. - [Voiceover] This is a
painting that really does express a divine authority. - [Voiceover] In the early 13th century, Byzantine icons, that is,
images of the Madonna, images of saints in a
flat gold background, increasingly came to Italy and influenced artists there like Berlinghieri. The Byzantine influence is in the elongation of the
figure, its flatness, and in that gold background. Here we're seeing many elements that are typical of the Byzantine figures that are frontal, weightless, elongated, that gold light of heaven. In less than a century with Giotto, we're going to see an
interest in human beings who are in much more natural proportions, a renewed interest in a
realistic, believable, earthly setting for figures, but it's fascinating to
see this early moment in Italian painting and the influence of the Byzantine empire. (piano music)