'A great sumptuousness of paintings': frescos and Franciscan poverty at Assisi in 1288 and 1312

• Autores: Donal Cooper, Janet Robson
• Localización: Burlington magazine, ISSN 0007-6287, Vol. 151, Nº 1279, 2009, págs. 656-662
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The writers offer a critical evaluation of a 1312 text concerning frescoes commissioned for the church at Assisi, Italy, by Pope Nicolas IV. The text was written by leading Franciscan theologians, who, stung by growing criticism over the lax observance of poverty in their Order, aimed to defend the decoration of Franciscan churches. The text has been considered to offer a precise and unequivocal point of reference for dating the fresco decoration of the Upper Church, though its precise meaning has been subject to lively debate. The passage defending the frescoes is in fact by no means transparent. Its significance (as well as its limitations) as a piece of evidence in the problem of the dating and attribution of the St. Francis cycle can only be properly understood by situating the text within its own historical context, 20 years after Nicholas IV's pontificate. In this article, the writers narrow down the planning and execution of the entire nave program (the Old and New Testament cycles followed by the St Francis cycle) to the nine years between Nicholas IV's bull Reducentes ad sedulae in May 1288 and the disgrace of the Colonna family in May 1297.