Signorelli — Cappella di San Brizio, Duomo di Orvieto

Text by Frida De Salve — photographs by B. Balestrini

The frescoes of the chapel of San Brizio in the Cathedral in Orvieto represent one of the greatest Italian Renaissance works of art.

The work, carried out between 1499 and 1504, was completed by the great master Luca Signorelli. The frescoes of the chapel had first been commissioned from Fra Angelico in 1447, but he painted only two of the four vault sections entrusted to him and, what is more, took a full two years over it. Fra Angelico was then suddenly called to the Vatican, and the work inexplicably remained at a standstill until 1499, the year that marks the start of work by Signorelli. The initial commission was limited to the two vault sections already designed by Angelico and left unfinished, but Signorelli, thanks to his mastery and speed of execution, so impressed and astonished the people of Orvieto, who were tired of waiting for the work to be completed, that they immediately entrusted him with frescoing the other four vault sections of the entrance bay and the walls of the chapel. The people of Orvieto, however, were not the only ones to benefit from that commission; for Signorelli too, in fact, the work meant a great deal. He was indeed going through a difficult time in his art, full of doubts and uncertainties caused by the various influences of the culture of the time.

Very probably, therefore, he took that opportunity to put an end to his various experiments and seek a new way of expressing himself. Moreover, the space to be frescoed and the subject to be treated offered a truly unique opportunity to put himself to the test, demonstrate his talent and make known the innovative elements of his art.

His masters, Piero della Francesca, Pollaiuolo, Masaccio and many others, with their teachings, led him to become a forerunner of Renaissance art.

Signorelli came to tackle that work at a time of social and political crisis and decided to set aside every kind of archaic element, with which he had worked until then, preferring to devote himself to his work with a painting capable of expressing his feelings, his strong emotions and, above all, the ideas of his time.

In this regard it is only right to mention Berenson, who described him almost as an illustrator who immerses himself in his work with all his culture, his ideals and his feelings. Signorelli, taking Dante as his source of inspiration, he succeeds in creating an extraordinarily monumental work, by means of a melodramatic narrative.

His work, indeed, has often been called theatrical, precisely because of his tendency to pay the utmost attention to the smallest detail, as if the scene were to turn into a spectacle, and to ensure that, within the splendid choral unity of the work, every figure lives a life of its own. Seven frescoes were masterfully painted by Signorelli to represent the Apocalypse, which has always been considered one of the greatest dramas of human history. Within these frescoes Signorelli, thanks to his great passion for anatomy and his perfect use of perspective, treats the human figure by emphasising not so much its inner life as its physicality and, letting his own emotions show through a hard, statuesque draughtsmanship, creates a new way of conceiving and representing sacred art.

Signorelli paints human bodies realistically, in constant movement, crowded together and entwined with one another, and above all, thanks to his depiction of the nude, he succeeds in conveying a new vision of Christianity, made necessary by the need for renewal in the religious sphere that was bursting forth in those years.

Over all the scenes of the frescoes towers the figure of Christ, depicted high up in the vault as supreme judge, to remind humanity that in the end it will stand before him to be judged. Men will thus be damned or saved according to their conduct on earth.

In Christ the Judge one immediately recognises the hand of Fra Angelico and his workshop, with its perfect, refined style and meticulous attention to detail.

It seems essential, finally, to touch on Signorelli’s relationship with Dante. The latter, portrayed among the listeners of the Antichrist and on the dado, among poets and philosophers, was an inspiration, both ideologically and in formal representation. The demons, in fact, with their cruel savagery against the damned, are the same ones described by Dante in the Divine Comedy

The photographs

THE ANTICHRIST. This theme, so unusual for that time, was probably prompted by an event that occurred in that period: the burning of Savonarola. Signorelli handles with great mastery the participation of large crowds in that event, depicting them in distinct groups, with precise spatial intervals between one figure and the next, finally achieving an exceptional overall unity. The figures are grandiose and depicted in an almost archaic manner. In the centre, slightly to the right, dominates the figure of the Antichrist, shown on a pedestal with the prompting devil clinging to his shoulders. All around is a packed crowd of every kind, within which every figure takes on an important role: the rebel Archangel falling beneath the thunderbolts, the woman on the left receiving the wages of her sin from a Jew, the young man with his hands on his hips standing beside her. On the far left, almost like figures apart, are two men dressed in black, identified as Signorelli himself and Fra Angelico, impassive in the face of events. In these two figures the reference to Dante and Virgil in the Divine Comedy seems clear. As for the figure of the Antichrist, various identifications have been proposed for it, among them Savonarola, Alexander VI, Evil and Cain.

THE END OF THE WORLD. This scene occupies the great entrance arch of the chapel. Signorelli resolves the problem of the small surface to be painted by dividing the scene into two distinct sections on either side of the arch. The Sibyl, leafing through a book of prophecies, announces the imminent cataclysm, and the prophet Ezekiel (the figure in the turban) points to the warning signs: the darkening stars, the red moon, the grey and black sun. At the top left one sees the devils spitting fire on humanity, which tries in vain to flee, and, lower down, the distraught women clutching their children to their breasts in an attempt to protect them. The figures in the foreground are shown in tight-fitting, brightly coloured clothes that emphasise the shapes of their bodies. This seems almost an allusion to the immoral and corrupt life of mankind. This extraordinary painting, of evident violence, displays a balance almost at the limit between the real world and the staging of a great spectacle.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD (detail). In the first large lunette on the right appears the Resurrection of the Dead, perhaps the finest of the frescoes in the cycle. Unlike the End of the World, violent and tempestuous, this fresco is pervaded by a calm, serene atmosphere, in which the figures are set to an impeccable spatial rhythm. From the surface, devoid of any additional figurative elements, bodies and skeletons struggle to emerge. Signorelli depicts vigorous young bodies of astonishing beauty, celebrating the triumph of life over death. The resurrection takes place according to the degree of Christian perfection reached in earthly life, and here this is evident in the differences between the various images: some bodies, in fact, already appear perfectly formed and represent the most virtuous, while others are still depicted as skeletons, awaiting the final formation of their bodies. Many of these figures are looking upwards, where two great angels are depicted who, to the sound of trumpets, against the fantastic background of the golden sky, announce that Christ is risen and that the “Day of the Lord” is beginning. This scene is the triumph of the nude, anatomically perfect and with a representational power never seen before. It almost seems that the Master conceived the nude as the summit of pictorial expression.

THE DAMNED (detail). In this fresco drama and scenographic representation return. Here too, where overall unity is perfectly achieved, the individual episodes live a life of their own. It seems important to point out how the same woman who is depicted in the scene of the Antichrist taking money from the usurer is shown here several times: riding on the back of a winged demon, crushed in the grip of another, strangled with a cord. Being the only woman portrayed among the damned, she represents the symbol of the Whore of the Apocalypse, the corrupt city of Babylon, symbol of all the harlotry and obscenity of the world. According to tradition, Signorelli gave this figure the likeness of a woman who had rejected his love. The fresco dramatically depicts the despair of the damned, persecuted and tortured by the demons and represented as a mass of flesh, muscles and bodies racked with pain.

HELL. In this scene the reference to the first cantos of the Inferno of the Divine Comedy is very evident. In the background one glimpses mountains spewing flames and a group of the “uncommitted”, those who in life sided neither with God nor with Satan and are therefore destined to enter neither Paradise nor Hell, chasing a demon with a white banner. Below, Charon approaches the damned to ferry them to the other bank of the river Acheron and carry them towards Hell. At the bottom right is the judge Minos, who determines the punishments of the sinners by winding his tail around his body. Above them all, two angels look on helplessly at the scene.

PARADISE. In the upper part of this scene one sees angels intent on playing lutes and bagpipes, and others, below, who show the blessed the way to Paradise, pointing to Christ the Judge. The figures of the blessed are portrayed by means of an ascending representation. Some of them, in fact, are kneeling, others standing, and others still are shown as they rise in flight.

THE ELECT. The whole scene is pervaded by a harmonious, serene atmosphere. The Blessed show serene faces with the sweetest expressions and very beautiful bodies. Against the background of the golden sky, which makes the divine presence felt, the angels play for the elect, strew them with flower petals and place the “crown of virtue” on their heads, finally to accompany them towards the eternal reward promised to them: Paradise. The contrast between the scene of the Damned and that of the Elect is striking, as if to show the observer the importance of choosing to love God on Earth so as to deserve the reward in the hereafter.

THE LAMENTATION OVER THE DEAD CHRIST. The fresco, inside the small chapel of the Corpi Santi, has a vigorous character but, certainly, calmer than the seven main scenes.

DANTE. Signorelli decorates the dado with grotesques, painting portraits of illustrious poets and philosophers and monochromes illustrating their works. Among these, Dante stands out, above all because of the analogies between the Orvieto cycle and the Divine Comedy. Here, in fact, the Master illustrates a series of cantos of the Purgatorio. In the painting of the dado Signorelli becomes decorative, naturalistic and imaginative, and tackles the scenes with a hard contrast between light and shadow and with great attention to line, following the teachings of Pollaiuolo.

Source

Bruno Balestrini’s thais.it site