After lunch we still had more of the Field of Miracles to do. My favorite place there is the cemetery and its giant and very old Buffalmacco fresco cycle. Penelope, turning eight years old, is not keen on cemeteries, but relented when we explained, well, it was really more of a museum than a cemetery (sort of true) and conditionally approved her proposal that we celebrate her impending birthday while on our little trip (we would not be with her on the actual day). The cemetery is a huge old building around a courtyard. It's all indoors, sort of, and thus the survival of some very old and important frescoes. Chief among these are Buffalmacco's
Judgement and
Triumph of Death. They date from the 1330s, when Buffalmacco was active. He was a generation younger than Giotto, though obviously influenced by him; and Dante; a contemporary of Petrarch and Boccacio. Vasari wrote of him two centuries later, although none of the works he attributes to Buffalmacco have survived.
What I find so durned innerestin' is the intersections of intellectual history, art, literature, etc. The Triumph of Death theme is from Petrarch, I've read. Buffalmacco, a bit of a prankster as well as a painter, figures in three of the
Decameron's stories. In the
Triumph, Buffalmacco depicts 10 (count 'em) young persons off in the countryside, avoiding the city. The frescoes were done a decade
before the Black Death. Coincidence? I don't think so. Anyhow, it's fun to wonder about such apparent interactions between writers and artists. Nothing should be very surprising since they were all Renaissance
persons, so to speak, with multiple interests, and that Florence, Pisa, and other parts of the story are not very far apart. But I digress.
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I should add that all these work are on the enormous side, 12x30 feet, I'd guess;
this one concerns hermits and the various attractions of asceticism... |
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The Inferno part of the Judgment; we'll visit the Scrovegni Chapel in a few days
and see the similarities between Buffalmacco's hell and Giotto's |
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| Hot tub detail |
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| Interesting digestive tract |
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| Less lurid part of Judgement |
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Part of Triumph of Death; the 10 young people are in the lower right; did
Boccacio get his idea from this?! |
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| Other part: it's just too damned big! |
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Vasari thought Buffalmacco's habit of inserting text into the paintings was a cheap
trick; a child of his age, methinks |
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| Aerial combat in the Battle for Souls |
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| Judgment detail |
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Interior courtyard of Cimaterie; original soil from the Holy Land, courtesy of
St. Helen, Constantine's mom |
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Leonardo of Pisa is still there; I tried to interest P in the
Fibonacci numbers, but she needs a bit more math... |
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| She also does not know who Casper the Friendly Ghost is |
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| Other assorted huge very old frescoes throughout the building |
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| Thus |
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Helpful model of the universe, according to Aquinas; it's a Dominican sort of
place; but a wonderful place |
