San Francesco (Arezzo)
San Francesco , the most important church in Arezzo , is a typical example of a simple mendicant order church. More essential than the architecture is the cycle of frescoes Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca from the 15th century, which established the fame of this church. In 1955 it received the rank of minor basilica .
Building history
During the lifetime of Francis of Assisi , the Franciscans had built a first church with a convent on the "Sun Hill" ( Poggio del Sole ) southwest of the city. The current construction within the city walls, based on plans by Fra Giovanni da Pistoia , began in 1318 and completed in 1377. Destruction by mercenary troops made it necessary to demolish the original building and rebuild it elsewhere. This is what the city of Arezzo asked the Franciscan Friars in a resolution of 1290.
The campanile is an ingredient from around 1600.
architecture
The facade of the simple Gothic brick building has remained unfinished due to lack of funds. The only dividing element is an oculus by Guglielmo de Marcillat above the portal. The single-nave hall church is vaulted only in the three choir chapels and has an open roof in the nave. The three-aisled lower church is now used for exhibition purposes.
The frescoes by Piero della Francesca
In the main choir chapel, Piero della Francesca created a ten-part fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross from 1453 to at least 1459, possibly until 1466 . It depicts the story of the cross of Christ according to the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine , which begins with the death of Adam and is told up to the triumphal procession of Herakleios to Jerusalem in the year 628.
The client was the Bacci family, who lived in Arezzo and held the patronage of this chapel. She had initially turned to Bicci di Lorenzo with the request for a fresco , but he died in 1452. Piero della Francesca, who initially “had to step in”, exceeded the expectations of the client and created a work that is one of the main works of the early Italian Renaissance .
iconography
In Franciscan iconography , the cross and crucifixion are of particular importance because the founder of the order saw the crucified in a vision , the monks at that time looked after the sites of the finding of the cross in the Holy Land and took part in the propagation of the crusades to which Pius II had called, involved.
The selected scenes of the legend of the cross, distributed over the right outer wall, the front wall and the left outer wall of the chapel, are not shown in the chronological order described below , beginning in the lunette at the top right. Instead, as shown in the adjacent schematic illustration, the images are to be read thematically related to one another in the architectural space: the battles appear in the lower row of images, the court scenes in the upper row. In the lunettes, the biblical beginning and the historically documented end of the legend of the cross face each other: Adam and Eve on the right, the people of Jerusalem on the triumphal procession of Herakleios on the left. In the front wall bezel, the ten-part fresco cycle is rounded off by the depiction of the prophets Jeremiah and Isaias .
| Illustration | chronology | title | annotation |
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01 | Adam's death | The dying Adam sends his son Seth to the gate of Paradise, where he receives a branch from the tree of knowledge from the Archangel Michael , which he plants in Adam's mouth. The fresco is 390 × 747 cm.
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02 | Isaias | |
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03 | Jeremiah | |
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04 | The Queen of Sheba kneels in front of the bridge over the Siloe River and meets Solomon | The Queen of Sheba worships the sacred wood on the way to King Solomon , to whom she prophesies the death of a coming Savior on the cross. The fresco is 336 × 747 cm. |
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05 | The Adoration of the Sacred Wood | Salomon has the wood buried, which is later washed away by the water. |
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06 | Annunciation | |
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07 | Constantine's dream | The cross with the words in hoc signo vinces appears to the emperor Constantine the great in a dream . The fresco is 329 × 190 cm.
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08 | The victory of Constantine over Maxentius | Battle of the Milvian Bridge : Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius on October 28, 312 |
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09 | Torture of the Jew | Emperor Constantine converts to Christianity and sends his mother Helena to Jerusalem to look for the buried cross. Under pressure, the Levite Judas reveals the right place on Mount Golgotha . |
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10 | The Finding and Testing of the True Cross | The three crosses of Christ and the two criminals are excavated on Golgotha. The correct cross can be identified by the fact that it brings a dead person to life (presumably 324; on September 14, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross ). The fresco is 356 × 747 cm. |
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11 | The battle between Heraclius and Chosroes | Helena has the cross brought to Jerusalem. 300 years later, the Persian king Chosrau II , who is defeated by Emperor Herakleios in 627, steals it. The fresco is 329 × 747 cm. |
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12 | The glorification of the cross | Triumphal procession of Herakleios to Jerusalem on March 21, 628: the city gates open and the people of Jerusalem adore the cross. It is the final scene of the legend of the cross. The figure of the adoring emperor was completely lost. The Eastern Roman courtiers wear cylindrical Greek headgear. Piero may have seen such hats in 1439 on the occasion of the so-called "Council of the Greeks" in Florence. Old Florentine chroniclers of the time wrote of their exotic elegance. The fresco is 390 × 747 cm. |
style
Piero della Francesca's art is in the tradition of the Italian early Renaissance, whose foundations u. a. Fra Angelico , Masaccio , Paolo Uccello and especially Domenico Veneziano , in whose Florentine workshop the young Piero della Francesca worked.
His pictures are structured with great clarity, restrained mobility (even in the battle scenes) and designed with calm, simple forms in solid, closed outlines. It is Piero's peculiarity to make hardly any emotions visible in the faces of his figures. The facial expressions are almost always silent and focused. The gaze never meets the viewer. André Malraux therefore called Piero the "inventor of indifference".
By 1450–60, a generation after Brunelleschi's first perspective-painted panels and Masaccio's groundbreaking Trinity fresco in Florence, mastery of the central perspective was already part of the assured existence of artistic craftsmanship. Unlike some second-generation Florentine artists, Piero della Francesca no longer tries to deepen space constructs in which the figures take a back seat, but returns to a more planar image structure even if the laws of perspective are correctly applied. The special thing about Piero della Francesca's style lies in this harmonious combination of a flat picture stage, in which Giotto echoes, and perspective spatial representation (easy to understand for example in the scene: "Meeting of the Queen of Sheba with King Solomon" (1st Kings, 10)) .
Piero della Francesca achieves this harmony in particular through his light and color treatment. The natural light entering through the choir window supports this effect. The light spreads in uniform warmth without sharp contrasts or shadows over the entire fresco cycle.
In “The Dream of Constantine” Piero della Francesca succeeds in creating one of the rather rare night depictions in the Renaissance that Giorgio Vasari already admired.
During the use of the church as a soldiers' camp in 1799, the frescoes were badly damaged in several places. There were also static problems and those resulting from earthquakes. The extensive restoration that began in 1992 was completed in 1997.
Other equipment
- The table cross above the high altar from the first building was created by the anonymous Maestro di San Francesco , who was also stylistically close to his contemporary Cimabue .
- An annunciation on the side wall of the left chapel is attributed to Luca Signorelli .
- Frescoes by Spinello Aretino (around 1390/1400) and his successor Lorentino d'Arezzo (2nd half of the 15th century) are on the inner facade and in the side chapels . a. Scenes from the life of Saint Bernardine of Siena and miracles of Saint Anthony of Padua .
- Tomb for the legal scholar Francesco Rosselli by Michele da Firenze (15th century).
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organ
The organ was built in 1969 by the Costamagna organ builder. The instrument has 15 stops on two manual works and a pedal. The playing and stop actions are electric.
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Web links
literature
- Rolf Toman (ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance. Architecture - sculpture - painting - drawing. Cologne 1994, p. 269.
- Alain J. Lemaître: Florence and its art in the 15th century. Paris 1992, pp. 145 and 150 ff.
- Klaus Zimmermann: Toscana. The hill country and the historic city centers. DuMont art travel guide, 5th edition, Cologne 2004.
Coordinates: 43 ° 27 '52.2 " N , 11 ° 52' 50.9" E