Madonna of Foligno

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Madonna of Foligno (Raffael)
Madonna of Foligno
Raphael , 1511/12
Panel painting in fat tempera ,
in 1800/01 canvas transfer

308 × 198 cm
Vatican Pinacoteca (Room VIII), Vatican City

The Madonna of Foligno is a representation of Mary by Raphael . The painting , created in 1511/12, is in the Vatican Museums .

history

Raphael painted the panel painting on behalf of the learned humanist and secretary Pope Julius II. Sigismondo de 'Conti (1432–1512) for the high altar of the Roman Franciscan Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli , in whose apse Sigismondo was buried. It shows Mary and the child according to the vision that, according to legend, Emperor Augustus received on the day of Jesus' birth on the site of today's church at the Capitol by the Tiburtine Sibyl . According to popular interpretation, based on the background scene, Sigismondo, whose house in Foligno was undamaged by a ball lightning or bolide impact, wanted to express his thanks to the Blessed Mother with the votive offering .

In 1565 the sanctuary of Santa Maria in Aracoeli was completely redesigned, and the niece of Sigismondos, abbess of the Monastero delle Contesse in Foligno, had the image of Mary brought to her monastery church of Sant'Anna . After the Napoleonic campaign in Italy and the Treaty of Tolentino with the Papal States , it was brought to Paris in 1797 . Between 1800 and 1801 the picture was transferred to canvas by the two restorers François-Toussaint Hacquin and Mathias Roeser . When it was returned in 1816, Pope Pius VII decided to keep it in the Vatican collection. In the period that followed , copies were made for numerous churches around the world, including the Cathedral of Foligno .

description

The arched picture, more than three meters high, is divided into a heavenly and an earthly half. The semicircular border between the two forms a circle with the upper edge of the picture, the symbol of eternity and perfection.

In the round of the sky, in front of a blue and white background of clouds and childlike angels and a golden disc of the sun , hovers Mary with the baby Jesus . Sitting on a cloud, clad in a red undergarment and blue overgarment and a veil that also envelops the child, she turns sideways down to the child and holds it lightly by the shoulder and hip. The unclothed boy seems to be striving away from his mother's lap. The outstretched left leg is already touching the cloud floor, the right arm pushes the veil aside, the upper body is turned away; the head, however, is inclined towards the mother, and the gaze of the half-closed eyes is directed downwards to the earthly realm.

In the middle of the green overgrown ground, facing the beholder, with his eyes directed to the sky, stands an unclothed, winged angel boy with an empty tablet. On the left, St. Francis of Assisi kneels in adoration in a Franciscan robe , cross and palms stigma , on the right in a red cloak, with clasped hands and the expression of religious devotion on the face, the founder Sigismondo. Again flanked by two standing figures: on the left, John the Baptist , in a fur cloak and with shaggy hair, on the left a cross of branches, looks at the viewer and points with the right to the Mother of God with the child; on the right Jerome is depicted as a hermit , barehead, in a blue robe, at his feet his attribute , the lion; He places his left hand on the head of the founder and makes a gesture of recommendation to the Madonna with the lowered right hand.

In the background there is a wide meadow landscape with grazing sheep and a town at the foot of a low mountain range. The city is spanned by a rainbow, and a glowing red celestial body falls over one of the houses.

Interpretations

Iconography and the cause of the foundation have been controversial in research since the 1970s. It is questionable whether the picture, which was intended as an altar picture for the burial place of the founder, was also donated as a votive picture on the occasion of a comet impact or whether other interpretations are more plausible for the background scene and thus for the overall picture. Elisabeth Schröter argues in her essay (1987) that the background scene cannot depict a historical event, but that the comet should be seen as a general metaphor for catastrophes (Andreas Tönnesmann). Together with the rainbow as a sign of divine grace, he refers to the end of the earthly world and the coming judgment. The boy standing on Mary's knees points in his position to representations of the world judge at the Last Judgment . Arnold Nesselrath (2011) sees a representation of Bethlehem with the star in the background scene, corresponding to the Christmas theme of the picture .

literature

  • Arnold Nesselrath : Raphael's Madonna of Foligno . In: Heavenly Shine. Raffael, Dürer and Grünewald paint the Madonna. Edited by Andreas Henning u. Arnold Nesselrath. Munich: Prestel 2011. pp. 40–51. ISBN 978-3-7913-5185-8
  • Andreas Tönnesmann : A psychological motive for Raffael . In Arbor amoena comis. Edited by Ewald Könsgen. Stuttgart: Steiner 1990. pp. 293-304. Full text ISBN 3-515-05625-4
  • Knut Wenzel : The force of the unrepresentable. Image cultures of Christianity. Freiburg i. Br. 2019. P. 68ff.

Individual evidence

  1. “After Octavianus had subjected the whole world to Roman power and he was also emperor, the Senate (as Pope Innocent III says) liked him so much that they wanted to worship him as a god. But since the wise emperor recognized that he was mortal, he did not want to claim the name of immortality for himself. At her insistence, he called the fortune teller Sibylla, because he wanted to know through her oracle whether someday someone would be born on earth who would be greater than himself. But since he had requested advice on this point on the very day of the Lord's birth and the Sibyl alone held the oracles in the emperor's room, a golden circle appeared around the sun in the middle of the day and a very beautiful virgin appeared in the middle of the circle held a boy on her lap. The Sibyl showed this to the emperor. And when the emperor was amazed at the said vision, he heard a voice that said to him: "This is the altar of heaven". And Sibylla said to him: "This boy is bigger than you, and therefore adore him". The room was then consecrated in honor of St. Mary, which is why it is still called Sancta Maria Ara Coeli today. ”( Legenda aurea cap. VI, translation by Joachim Leeker, TU Dresden)
  2. Thus the picture commentary of the Vatican Pinakothek ; for a discussion on this see interpretations .
  3. Nesselrath
  4. ^ Elisabeth Schröter: Raphael's Madonna di Foligno. A picture of the plague? In: Journal for Art History. 1987. pp. 46-87.
  5. Commentary on the exhibition of the Madonna von Foligno in Dresden on the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Germany . 2011

Web links

Commons : Madonna of Foligno  - Collection of images, videos and audio files