Breaking the silence: the poor Clares and the visual arts in fifteenth-century Italy

Renaissance Quarterly, Summer, 1995 by Jeryldene M. Wood

Transubstantiation also underlies the imagery of the two side altars that formerly occupied the right wall of the nave. The lunettes of the Assumption and the Resurrection modeled by Andrea della Robbia were placed respectively over a Nativity scene painted by Lorenzo di Credi and a Lamentation by Pietro Perugino to form a Redemption cycle that celebrated the defeat of Satan through Mary's sinless bearing of the Savior as well as Christ's victory over death [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 10 and 11 OMITTED].(37) The paintings of Christ's humble birth and his humiliating death are obviously complementary. Lorenzo's Child rests on the miraculously flowering earth against a bundle of hay covered by his mother's blue veil, as described in the popular Meditations on the Life of Christ, which was originally written for a community of Poor Clares in the thirteenth century.(38) Joseph stands quietly pondering the event on the right while his visual counterpart, the shepherd whose gaze extends beyond the frame at the left, foretells the Infant's predestined sacrifice. To emphasize the point further, one of the angels conversing in the background before Giuliano da Sangallo's architecture, which supports the stable, motions heavenward to clarify the source of the New Era of Grace.

While serene contemplation and wistful wonder characterize the Adoration of the Shepherds, a mood of silent meditation and measured grief permeates Perugino's Lamentation [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 11 OMITTED]. Christ's pale, pitifully stiffening body rests on a white shroud in a slightly elevated position that resembles the pose of Lorenzo's Infant. The sharp-edged stone of unction replaces the rounded straw bolster of the Adoration, and although Mary tenderly grasps her Son's arm, his other limb dangles lifelessly above the crown of thorns lying on now barren ground. Attention centers on Christ, except for Joseph of Arimathea who engages the observer's notice at the left as if to respond pictorially to the shepherd's prophecy in Lorenzo's painting. Only the murmured conversation behind the youth at the right of the Lamentation, like the angelic dialogue in the rear of the infancy story, breaks the heavy silence and animates the hushed stillness of bereavement.

The inversion of expectations is particularly poignant in the paintings for Santa Chiara Novella. Lorenzo's Adoration of the Shepherds evinces a visual melancholy at odds with the joy of scriptural accounts, for his Infant lies isolated, neither warmly cuddled nor protectively embraced by his mother. Perugino's Lamentation, on the contrary, affects by its unusual restraint. Few marks of Christ's physical torture appear: the cross is barely discernible in the left background and the Messiah's wounds are discretely represented. A surprising physical tenderness toward the dead Savior, who is gently enclosed and touched consolingly by his mother and weeping followers, pervades the painting, and such nuanced gestures as one of the Marys caressing Christ's head at the point where it was crowned by thorns, reiterate the notion of sorrow grounded in loss. Reciprocity of gesture in the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Lamentation, whereby the hands raised in wonder by Lorenzo's bowing shepherd and angels become a compelling sign of Mary Magdalen's anguish in Perugino's work, underscores the inherent mystery of Christ's Incarnation.