Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 33 minutes):Michael Haydn: St Francis Mass
As in the Peruzzi chapel, three frescoes framed by ornamental bands decorate each wall. But unlike in the former, these are dedicated to just the one saint, St. Francis. The Renunciation of Worldly Goods and the Confirmation of the Rule are situated in the lunettes. In the middle register the Apparition at Arles and the Trial by Fire before the Sultan are depicted. The Death of St. Francis and Inspection of the Stigmata and the Apparition at Aries can be seen at eye level. Above the entrance to the chapel the Stigmatisation is portrayed, as it were, as a summation of the life of the saint. The seraphim from whom Francis receives the stigmata here appears — unlike at Assisi or in the panel in the Musée du Louvre — as the crucified Christ.
While the St Francis in the paintings in the Upper Church at Assisi wears a beard, Giotto depicts him without one here, as in the vault frescoes in the Lower Church. This manifestation of the saint, favoured by the order since 1316, must have been particularly agreeable to a banker, since it no longer expressed the original significance of personal poverty.
Unlike the Peruzzi Chapel, the construction of the architecture portrayed in the frescoes is here based on a viewpoint within the chapel. The perspective of the architectural structures in the paintings changes with great logical consistency — the higher the register, the greater the foreshortening from below. This only increases the impression of fluidity between real and painted space.
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Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 33 minutes): Michael Haydn: St Francis Mass |
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| Frescoes in the Bardi Chapel, S. Croce, Florence by Giotto |
| Scenes from the life of St Francis |
| | Scenes 1-4 | Scenes 5-7 | |
