All right, let’s get back into sharing random academic articles with you folks.
For those in the back or new here: History is one of my primary windows into life, period. A library rat, I roam the Internet as I used to roam the stacks at the Vanderbilt Divinity School library: pulling volumes from the shelves and getting sucked into rabbit holes.
JSTOR is still giving access to up to 100 articles at no cost. This one is from Academia.edu though. A weird, almost scammy site, but with a lot of material.
Did your eyes glaze over yet? I know, I know, but stay with me.
No, Catholics did not get the message about faith-charity-justice since Vatican II. In fact, it was the opposite: charity was at the core of faith. People took Jesus in Matthew 25 at his word.
My evolving theory on how that changed during the course of the 20th century involves socio-economic factors: as in, with greater general prosperity and mobility, human beings were more able to segregate themselves and therefore shut themselves off from those in need and create little worlds where they could pretend they didn’t exist and the growth of “Real Faith = Me Following My Heart and I’m going to Heaven Anyway” instead of “Real Faith=Me Following Jesus’ Commands Or Else.”
This article about a single painting in a small room in Florence helps makes that clear. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to take the description of the painting from another article, a review article of a book another scholar wrote about the painting.
(Throughout much of Catholic history, one of the primary ways that the laity lived out this command was through confraternities – organizations dedicated to particular spiritual charisms and works of charity of various kinds. )
Although undocumented, the Allegory of Mercy fresco is believed to have been commissioned by the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Misericordia as part of their headquarters’ artistic program and executed by an artist in the workshop of Bernardo Daddi (himself a student of Giotto) in 1342.
The fresco originally faced onto the Piazza del Duomo until a renovation in 1777 removed the painting from public view; throughout the book, Levin stresses the significance of the painting’s public accessibility.
In the fresco, a large frontally-posed female figure, a personification of the Lord’s Mercy, towers over smaller kneeling male (to her right, the position of privilege) and female figures (to her left). Eleven historiated roundels depicting the six canonical works of mercy, plus the non-canonical seventh, burial of the dead, decorate her cope. An early-Florentine cityscape, with Santa Croce and the Cathedral still under construction, is at the base of the fresco. The entire composition is framed by a decorative border representing the personified virtues; interspersed herein are an image of a stork defending its nest against a serpent and a pelican piercing its breast to feed its young. While similar in composition to the popular Madonna of Mercy image-type, the painting’s central figure is commonly believed to be an allegorical representation of the Lord’s Mercy rather than the Virgin Mary; on her crown are inscribed the words “Misericordia domini.”
Now, the article to which I’m referring youhas an interesting an detailed look, first at the way the painting is and probably was situation, and the author makes the strong case that while now it’s closed off in a room, originally it was probably part of an entryway/oratory setup, and, as such, served a catechetical function for members of the Confraternity.
He looks at the iconography and the text, and concludes that the piece might have served as a focus for confraternity members by which they could learn about the Works of Mercy which they were called to live out, and see the intimate relationship between Jesus’ words and example and the present moment in which they lived, in 13th century Florence.
In summary, the painting’s iconography articulates the fundamental theology of Christian salvation. Matthew’s text introduces this theme of salvation and identifies its three major parts: the Last Judgement, self-sacrifice, and the Kingdom of God. Matthew’s text and the elect places the overall composition within the context of the Last Judgement; the allegorical figure of Divine Misericordia, with the text and images of the Acts of Mercy, represents the concept of self-sacrifice that cleanses sin and enables salvation; while the image of Florence as the New Jerusalem represents the Kingdom of God.
The theme is summarized and directed to the confratelli in the restored inscription that appears below the fresco: OMNIS MISERICORDIA FACIET LOCUM UNICUIQUE/SECUNDUM MERITUM OPERUM SUORUM ET SECUNDUM INTELLECTUM PEREGRINATIONIS ILIUS/ANNO D. MCCCXLII DIE II. MENSIS SEPTEMBRIS (All mercy may make a place for each and every one according to the merit of his work and according to the understanding of the pilgrimage; in the year of the Lord 1342 the second day of the month of September). The first two lines of the inscription are based on Ecclesiastes 16:15,29 which concerns the greatness of God’s mercy, the severity of His wrath, and the notion repeated later in Matthew, that every man shall be treated according to his deeds and his understanding of his pilgrimage. In the context of the fresco, the “pilgrimage” is the progress toward the New Jerusalem and the “work[s]” are Acts of Mercy to be performed by the confratelli.
Of the surviving confraternal images from the duecento and trecento, the Allegory of Divine Misericordia is among the most theologically explicit.Indeed, no other image defines a confraternity’s place in the process of salvation in such a thorough and programmatic manner. It is as if the confraternity’s mission has been translated from the company’s statutes and represented through a complex interplay of image and text.
By studying this image, alone or with assistance, one could grasp the essentials of Christian salvation.
Quite striking is the abbreviation, as it were, of the Works of Mercy in those typically succinct Latin words:
The fresco incorporates another pedagogical tool, that of rhythm and
rhyme. By reading aloud the Latin verb-sentences that flank Divine Misericordia (VISITO/POTO/CIBO/REDIMO/TEGO/COLLIGO/CONDO), one
notices that they form a rhythmic chant that ends with the same vowel. Not
only are the phrases easy to repeat, they form a simple, memorable distillation of Matthew’s account of the means to salvation.The large size of this text and its overt placement supports the notion that it was to be read at a distance, presumably by a group, aloud, and in unison. Such collective recitation of the Misericordia’s “credo” must have had a moving effect on the individual saying them aloud.
In contrast to the lengthy biblical passage, these phrases are
more personal and active because of the shift in voice from the second-person
past tense (“you gave me to eat”) to the first-person singular present (“I
feed”). This assertive grammatical change represents the process that the confraternity aimed to effect within the hearts and bodies of the confratelli: to
manifest scripture in action.
And, as I said above, the placement of the painting was crucial – there was no sense that faith was a private, personal choice. It was public, it placed one in the midst of the city, listening to Christ, and being sent out, obeying him:
Apart from its function within the entrance hall, the fresco also relates directly to the Piazza San Giovanni. As confratelli stood before the Allegory of Divine Misericordia, learning the role of self-sacrifice in salvation at the Last Judgement and how to translate such doctrine into tangible practice, the confratelli need only to glance out onto the Piazza San Giovanni to see the object of their mission. Indeed, the detailed view of the city (Fig. 8), with its focus on the baptistery, begged comparison with the real city which, from the steps of the Misericordia, was likewise dominated by a view of the baptistery. However, this comparison extends beyond paralleling painted architecture to real architecture. Just as the view of Florence under Divine Misericordia provided a model for the real city outside, so too, the Acts of Mercy that appear in the medallions provided the model for members of the confraternity to follow as they stepped into the Piazza San Giovanni. In this way, the image encouraged the confratelli to apply abstract concepts to concrete reality, which is precisely what confraternities were organized to do.
Crafts & Vintage
