San Gimignano

Yes!

I don't know if it is too late and you have gone on your trek already, but for anyone who is interested, this is about the Frescoes.

There are not a great number of 14th century frescoes remaining in Italy, because they are suseptible to damp coming through the walls and earth tremours. They often have been plastered over, and had something different painted over the top.

Giotto's frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, and the several fresco cycles of the Upper and Lower churches of St Francis of Assisi have remained in relatively good condition because they hacve been highly valued and their buildings well maintained. But Most others have not been this fortunate, so it is by the greatest good fortune that the frescoes of the Collegiate Church of San Gimignano have remained intact.

The 14th century (1300s) paintings are by three different painters.

1. Inside the main doors on the wall known as the "retrofacade" (literally- back of the facade) is a "Last Judgement" by Taddeo di Bartolo, 1363-1422, one of the most renowned painters of his time.
The Last Judgement shows Christ seated in Majesty with the Blessed Virgin and St John the Baptist. On the Nave wall to the right of Jesus is a depiction of Paradise, and o the left of Jesus is a depiction of Hell. Not surprisingle, the gruesome scene of Hell is the one that attracts most attention, as it shows people being punished for the sins they have committed in the most horrible ways.

2. On the left hand wall of the church is a series of painings compltetly covering the wall in three tiers. They are by Bartolo di Fredi. The upper tier, set under the arches supporting the roof, shows the Creation and story of Adam and Eve from the Biblical book of Genesis. Below this, in big rectangular panels, it shows Bible stories of the Old Testament. They include stories of Noahh's Ark, Moses, Lot and Joseph's Dreams. The last picture is badly damaged, and is from the story of Job.

3. On the other side of the building, a matching series has been painted by Barna of Siena showing the Life of Christ. It starts with stoies of Mary, under the arches, then has the rectangular panels. The masterpiece of the series is the Crucifixion which takes up the full space of four other panels, and contains many aspects of the story, including the fainting Virgin Mary, dice-players, a soldier spearing Jesus, another breaking the legs of a thief and the Centurion saying "Truly this was the Son of God". It is considered to be one of the finest works of the 14th century.

Two important 15th century painters also worked in this church.

4. Benozzo Gozzoli did a painting of Saint Sebastian here and a very similar one in the other large church in this city, St Augustine's. The Saint Sebastian is on the wall beneath the Last Judgement. Saint Sebastian was an Early Christian soldier who was the leader of a band of archers. He was condemned for his faith to be exectuted by his own troops. So he is always shown tied up, generally to a tree and pierced with lots of arrows. Because he suffered many wounds, he became one of the saints who help was asked in times of plague. (the other one was Rocco who also helped with boils, ulcers and all kinds of infected wounds.) Paintings of Saint Sebbastian are often done as thanksgiving pictures afetr the plague has left the city.

5. The other important 15th century painter to be represented here is Domenico Ghirlandaio. He was Michelangelo's teacher. He must have been an excellent master. His paintings are not generally brilliantly inspirational like some renaissance masters, but they are very well painted technically. They have superb perspective, more lifelike portraiture than any other artist of his day and are beautifully and harmoniously composed. Because of his excellent portraits, lots of rich families, like the Medici and friends, got him to pant the walls of chapels for them, and put their portraits into scenes like "The Birth of John the Baptist"! In this case, he painted just two pictures in a small chapel, and I think they are the most lovely that he ever did.

The pictures tell the story of Santa Fina. She was a very devout and religious little girl, who suffered a crippling fever while she was just a child, and could never walk again. She lay on a thin mattress on a wooden palette, and was carried around. Her father employed a nurse to care for her. She died when she was about 15. Before her death Fina had a vision of Saint Gregory the Great who told her that she had not long to live and that soon she would be "dancing in paradise". Her nurse and another woman heard Fina talking to the Saint. As a sign of what had taken place, flowers grew around her. They were large, very pale-coloured violets, and they still grow around San Gimignano.

On the day of her burial, her body was taken to the collegiate church. There three miracles took place. The hand of the dead girl raised and touched that of her nurse, who was healed of her menstrual problems. A little blind choirboy bent to kiss her foot and recieved his sight, and suddenly every bell in all the many tall towers of the town, rang out simultaneously. (San Gimignano once had more than 100 tower-houses, but only 13 are still standing.

The particular fresco that was shown sand-bagged in the movie was the Funeral of Santa Fina.


Outside the cathedral, running along a side wall there is a loggia like a cloister. At the end of it is another frescoe, of the Annuncation. This is a lovely place to visit because there is often a harpist there called Andrea Piazza. It is very hard for me to think of San Gimignano without the rippling sound of his music coming to my mind.






"great minds think differently"