Download Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence

Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims
in Florence
Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
This paper analyzes how the mendicant friars in Florence perceived of
the Muslims, on the eve of the Reformation. I intend to focus on the
encounter between the Christian and Islamic worlds as it appears in
Florentine churches in both the oral and visual traditions. The usage of
rhetoric and preaching, the interrelations between word and image, the
artistic and literary traditions, works of art and sermons are at the
center of this paper. Crusading sympathy in Tuscany, particularly in
Florence, had a long history and the role of the mendicant orders,
established in the great convents of Santa Croce and Santa Maria
Novella, was crucial in winning sympathy for the crusades. This tradition
continued in the fifteenth century, when Florence openly voiced support
for papal crusading efforts and Franciscan and Dominican preachers
continued a tradition of mendicant crusade sermons. The mendicant
movements developed special types of artwork, paintings as well as
sculptures, in order to disseminate their religious ideals. The images
here discussed include works by Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi, and Benedetto
da Maiano from Santa Croce, and by Andrea da Firenze from Santa
Maria Novella.
Recently, much attention has been drawn by scholars of history,
religion, and literature to Western medieval and early modern
conceptions of non-Christian groups.1 A source of inspiration for many
of these works was Robert Ian Moore’s The Formation of a Persecuting
Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250 which
argues that high- medieval spiritual and secular authorities strove to
unite Christian society by identifying and humiliating groups considered
1
In 2001 The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies dedicated an entire
issue to the subject. See T. Hahn ed., Race and Ethnicity in the Middle Ages
[The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31:1 (2001)]. Another
example is S. Volkov ed., Being Different: Minorities, Aliens and Outsiders in
History (Hebrew), Jerusalem 2000.
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enemies of the church.2 Art historians have also contributed in this
area, mostly examining Christian representations of Jews and Judaism.
An important contribution to this growing field of literature is Debra
Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in
Medieval Art, which offers a systematic and comparative overview of
the way in which various non-Christian populations were depicted. 3 A
case in point is a study examining the way in which Christian society
perceived Muslims and the effect of such views on their ideas regarding
mission, conversion, and crusade. Leading studies were written by
Richard W. Southern, Norman A. Randolph, Benjamin Z. Kedar, and
more recently by John Tolan.4
In this short paper, only the beginning of a work in progress, I
examine the encounter between the Christian and the Islamic worlds
as can be seen in mendicant churches in Florence. I focus on the
Franciscan Church Santa Croce and on the Dominican Church Santa
Maria Novella, and explore images connected to the ideas of mission,
conversion and crusade. I suggest that the two orders conceived the
Saracens differently and used diverse visual vocabulary to picture them.
The themes touched upon are stereotypes and imagination, racial
difference and religious intolerance, and visual and rhetorical
propaganda. I will be using the term ‘Saracens’, common in the period,
which carries a negative association typical of that time, rather than
the neutral ‘Muslims’, defining a religious group.5
2
3
4
5
R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in
Western Europe: 950-1250, Oxford 1987.
See, for example, R. Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern
European Art of the Late Middle Ages, Berkeley 1993; S. Lipton, Images of
Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible Moralisee,
Berkeley 1999; D. H. Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews: Making Monsters
in Medieval Art, Princeton 2003.
See R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages, Cambridge,
MA 1962; N. Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image, Edinburgh
1960; B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the
Muslims, Princeton 1984; J. V. Tolan, ed., Medieval Christian Perceptions of
Islam, New York 1996; J. V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European
Imagination, New York 2002. See also Edward Said’s influential and provocative
study touching as well upon the medieval and early modern periods: E. W. Said,
Orientalism, New York 1978.
On terminology see J. Cohen, ‘On Saracens Enjoyment: Some Fantasies of
Race in Late Medieval France and England’, The Journal of Medieval and
Early Modern Studies 31 (2001), pp. 13-42.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
Turning to Santa Croce, the monument under discussion is a
preaching pulpit, created by the celebrated Florentine sculptor Benedetto
da Maiano, located on the south side of the church in the third pier of
the central nave (Figure 1). It is an octagonal structure of white gilded
marble holding five narrative reliefs between elegant fluted colonettes.
The narrative panels depict: The Confirmation of the Franciscan Order,
Saint Francis before the Sultan, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis,
The Funeral of Saint Francis, and The Martyrdom of the Franciscans
in Morocco. Below the narratives are finely carved consoles with small
niches containing statues of the Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity,
Temperance, and Justice. A base with ornamental motifs and the emblem
of the donor, Pietro Mellini, completes the structure. An octagonal
wooden canopy, under which the preacher would have stood, includes
a carved emblem of the Franciscan preacher, San Bernardino set on a
blue background.6
Scholars disagree about the dates of the commissioning and
construction of the pulpit. One possibility is the period 1472-1475
supported by Piero Morselli.7 The most recent suggestion proposed by
both Doris Carl and Gary Radke, argues for dating the pulpit to around
1485, on the basis of contracts regarding the tombs of the Mellinis in
the church of Santa Croce and in other churches.8 In any case there is
no definitive evidence regarding the exact dates; the design, construction,
and final installation of this exquisite monument might have spanned
the entire period suggested by the scholars, from 1472 to 1487. The
length of time is not unreasonable, given the high costs and artistic
complexity of the monument.
The choice of a Franciscan cycle for the pulpit is hardly surprising,
6
7
8
On the pulpit of Benedetto da Maiano in Santa Croce see D. Carl, ‘Il pergamo
di Benedetto da Maiano in Santa Croce a Firenze’, and G. M. Radke, ‘Geometria
e misura nel pulpito di Santa Croce’, in: D. Lamberini, M. Lotti, and R. Lunardi
eds., Giuliano e la bottega dei da Maiano: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di
Studi, Fiesole 13-15 giugno 1991, Florence 1994, pp. 158-67, 168-195; see also
D. Carl, ‘Franziskanischer Martyrerkult als Kreuzzugspropaganda an der Kanzel
von Benedetto da Maiano in Santa Croce in Florenz’, Mitteilungen des
Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 39 (1995), pp. 69-91.
On the dates of the pulpit, see P. Morselli, ‘Corpus of Tuscan Pulpits’, Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Pittsburgh 1978, pp. 99-100.
See Carl and Radke (above, n. 6).
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Figure 1
Benedetto da Maiano, The Pulpit in Santa Croce, 1472-75 (photo: Alinari)
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
Francis being the founder of the monastic order that built Santa Croce
as well as the second name of Pietro Mellini, the lay donor. It was
customary for a rich Florentine patron to contribute a monument
connected with at least one of his patron saints. For instance, Francesco
Sassetti chose to decorate a chapel donated by him to the church of
Santa Trinità in Florence with scenes from the life of his patron saint.
In Santa Croce, the story of St. Francis is depicted in several different
media: Giotto’s frescoes in the Bardi chapel and Taddeo Gaddi’s painted
panels for a sacristy cupboard, both dating to the fourteenth century,
and Benedetto da Maiano’s marble reliefs for the pulpit.9 Another St.
Francis narrative in Santa Croce is the Vita panel in the Bardi chapel,
recently attributed to Coppo di Marcovaldo.10 The painted cycles of
Giotto and Gaddi are the artistic source for many of the motifs shown
on the pulpit. Giotto’s work was well known and came to be considered
the iconographic prototype for many of the later cycles. Gaddi’s panels,
the majority found in the Accademia in Florence, are less prominent in
the artistic tradition, but they greatly influenced some of the narrative
details in Benedetto’s scenes. In a sense, Gaddi’s cycle was even more
important for Benedetto than Giotto’s because of the similarities of
medium and scale: both the sacristy cupboard and the pulpit are types
of church accessory, and both are on a much smaller scale than Giotto’s
frescoes.
In addition to the artistic tradition, the pulpit’s iconography draws
on the historical context and on Franciscan preaching at the time.
Scholarship on the image of Francis and the cycles of his life is vast.11
9
10
11
On Giotto’s Bardi Chapel see R. Goffen, Spirituality in Conflict: Saint Francis
and Giotto’s Bardi Chapel, London 1988; W. R. Cook, ‘Giotto and the Figure
of St. Francis’, in: A. Derbes and M. Sandona eds., The Cambridge Companion
to Giotto, Cambridge 2004, pp. 135-56. On Taddeo Gaddi’s panels, see A.
Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi, Columbia and London 1982.
See M. Boskovitz, The Origins of Florentine Painting 1100-1270, Florence
1993, p. 472.
On the representation of Francis in art see R. W. Cook, Images of St. Francis of
Assisi, Florence 1999; G. Kaftal, St. Francis in Italian Painting, London 1950;
S. Romano, ‘La morte di Francesco: fonti francescane e storia dello’ordine nella
basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi’, Zeitschrift für kunstgeschichte 1 (1998),
pp. 339-68; S. Romano, ‘Le storie parallele di Assisi: il Maestro di S. Francesco’,
Storia dell’arte 44 (1982), pp. 63-81. See also A. Ladis ed., Franciscanism, the
Papacy, and Art in the Age of Giotto, 4 vols. New York and London 1998; C.
Pirovano ed., Francesco d’Assisi: Storia e Arte, Milan 1982.
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Studies dealing with Franciscan cycles, in particular that in Assisi and
Giotto’s in Santa Croce, have emphasized the importance of the literary
tradition. Two sources for the life of Francis and for Franciscan
iconography, the first by St. Bonaventure and the second whose author
is anonymous take prominence: Legenda Maior (1260-1263) and the
Fioretti di San Francesco (1322-1328).12 These and other hagiographic
sources are considered to have important links with the artistic tradition
of the Franciscan narrative cycles.13 Regarding Benedetto da Maiano’s
fifteenth century pulpit, it is useful to examine another contemporaneous
literary source – namely, the sermons delivered by Franciscan preachers
of the fifteenth century. A possible source of influence might be the
sermons of San Bernardino da Siena (1380-1444), who preached in
Santa Croce in 1424-25 and whose school of followers continued
preaching there throughout the fifteenth century. The emblem of San
Bernardino appears both on the entrance door and above the pulpit,
hinting at the contribution of Bernardino’s sermons and those of his
successors to the pulpit’s iconography. The emblem of Bernardino,
located directly above the head of the preacher, features the letters
IHS (Holy Name of Jesus) surrounded by rays of light against a blue
background. The congregation facing the preacher would see the emblem
in glittering colors; the preacher would thus be speaking under the
inspiration (both physical and spiritual) of Bernardino and his school.
Bernardino initiated a cult centered on this emblem to which he dedicated
entire sermons, followed by scenes of people kissing the emblem,
weeping and hugging one another.14 Visual representations of the
emblem were widely dispersed in Siena and can be found in many
Franciscan institutions throughout Italy. Though removed during
reconstruction in the nineteenth century, another representation of the
emblem of San Bernardino was on the original façade of the church of
12
13
14
On the hagiography of Saint Francis, see J. R. H. Moorman, The Sources for the
Life of Saint Francis, Manchester 1940; C. Frugoni, Francesco e l’invenzione
delle stimmate: una storia per parole e immagini fino a Bonaventura e Giotto,
Torino 1993.
As an example of this approach see B. Cole, ‘Another Look at Giotto’s
Stigmatization of St. Francis’, Connoisseur 181 (1972), pp. 48-53.
On Bernardino’s cult of Il Nome del Gesù, see D. Arasse, ‘Entre dèvotion et
hèrèsie: la tablette de Saint Bernardin ou le secret d’un prèdicateur’, Res 28
(1995), pp. 118-39.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
Santa Croce; in 1437, Bernardino had organized a procession through
Florence demanding that his emblem be put there to protect the city
from the plague.
The encounter between the Christian and Muslim worlds is relevant
in two scenes on the pulpit: The Trial by Fire before the Sultan (Fig.
2) and The Martyrdom of the Franciscans in Morocco (Fig. 3). The
former emphasizes the role of the Franciscans as missionaries and the
greatness of Francis, who impressed even the sultan.15 According to
tradition, Francis followed the crusades to Damietta and had an interview
with Al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt. Bonaventura’s version, presented
in the Legenda Maior in 1260, portrays Francis challenging the sultan
and his imams to an ordeal by fire in order to establish which religion
was more powerful. The Muslims refused and Francis proposed to
undergo the ordeal himself. The story ends with Al-Kamil offering
rich gifts to Francis, who declined them and left the Muslim court.16
Another version, emphasizing the merits and generosity of the sultan,
was presented by the fioretti (the Little Flowers of the Life of St.
Francis) and goes as follows:
And standing before him, St. Francis, taught by the Holy Ghost,
preached the faith of Christ so divinely that for his faith’s sake
he even would have entered the fire. Whereat the Sultan began
feeling great devotion towards him, as much for the constancy
of his faith as for his contempt of the world (for albeit he was
very poor, he would accept no gift), and also for the fervor of
martyrdom he beheld in him. From that time forth the Sultan
heard him gladly, and entreated him many times to come back,
granting to him and to his companions freedom to preach
wheresoever it might please them; and he also gave them a
token, so that no man should do them hurt.17
15
16
17
On Francis as missionary and the Franciscan tradition of mission, see D. E.
Randolph, The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages, Lexington
1975; Kedar (above, n. 4), pp. 116-31.
C. T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the
Thirteenth Century, Cambridge 1994; St. Bonaventure, Opera Omnia, 10 vols,
Rome 1882-1902, IX, pp. 579-80.
See The Little Flowers of the Life of St. Francis, trans. by J. M. Dent, New York
1912, ‘How St. Francis converted the Soldan of Babylon to the True Faith’.
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Figure 2
Benedetto da Maiano, The Pulpit in Santa Croce, 1472-75 (photo: Alinari)
The Trial of the Sultan
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
Figure 3
Benedetto da Maiano, The Pulpit in Santa Croce, 1472-75 (photo: Alinari)
The Martyrdom of the Franciscans in Morocco
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
This much-favored version often appears in the popular preaching
tradition, most evidently in the sermons of Bernardino da Siena.
Francis’s dramatic encounter with the sultan became central to the
Franciscan legacy and, thanks to Giotto, a frequently depicted scene.
In Santa Croce, it figures in both Giotto’s and Gaddi’s cycles.
In the pulpit relief The Trial by Fire before the Sultan, an arch
draws attention to the sultan, seated at the centre. He wears a dignified
gown and his hat is the focal point, as is typical when portraying
Saracens.18 He approaches his four well-dressed imams, who are holding
books. Whereas in Giotto’s depiction, the attendants are moving away
in shame, in Benedetto’s version, they are conversing with the sultan.
The Franciscan delegation is off to the side, and St. Francis appears
small and humble with a simple halo around his head. Though the two
groups are distinct, the Saracens having beards and moustaches, there
is also some resemblance between them and even a sense of dialogue;
for example, one of the Franciscans seems to be speaking with one of
the sultan’s attendants. This scene takes place in a fine architectural
setting, based upon Florentine ecclesiastical architecture that includes
Brunelleschian motifs; for example: the throne is fashioned in a
Florentine shell niche. The familiar setting has the effect of reducing
the distance between the Florentine spectators and the Saracens, who
are not depicted as foreigners; two attractive balconies with intriguing
spectators complete the setting.
This scene reflects an admiration towards the kind and wise Saracen
ruler, a perception that appears in the Italian literary tradition: in the
Novellino, in Boccaccio’s Decameron and in exempla in Bernardino’s
sermons.19 Furthermore, the possibility of converting the Saracen ruler
gains special significance in the historical context, since the idea of
converting the Ottoman sultan as a solution to the Turkish threat was
discussed among Franciscan circles in the fifteenth century – the most
famous and intriguing example being the Franciscan Pope Pius II’s,
Letter to Mehmet, in which Pius by a variety of arguments, both religious
18
19
On the representations of Muslims in Italian Renaissance Art, see A. Contadini,
‘Artistic Contacts: Current Scholarship and Future Tasks’, in: C. Burnett and A.
Contadini eds., Islam and the Italian Renaissance, London 1999, pp. 1-16.
On positive images of Saracen rulers, see Strickland (above, n. 3), pp. 188-89.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
and pragmatic, tried to convert the Great Turk to Christianity.20 The
letter goes as follows:
It is a small thing, however, that can make you the greatest and
most powerful and most famous man of your time. You ask
what it is. It is not difficult to find. Nor have you far to seek. It
is to be found all over the world – a little water with which you
may be baptized, and turn to the Christian sacraments and believe
the gospel. Do this, and there is no prince in the world who will
exceed you in glory, or equal you in power.21
The fifth scene on the pulpit, The Martyrdom of the Franciscans in
Morocco, is highly original. According to tradition, Franciscan
missionaries went to Morocco in the thirteenth century to convert the
infidels, an initiative that ended in their being beheaded. The martyrdom
in Morocco is a scene rarely portrayed in art. One possibly related
depiction is Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco (ca. 1331) in the church of
San Francesco in Siena; but it has been argued convincingly that
Lorenzetti’s fresco represents the martyrdom of the six Franciscan
missionaries at Almalyq in central Asia by the Mongol Khan Ali in
1339 rather than the earlier martyrdom episodes in Morocco.22 In Santa
Croce, although the scene of the martyrdom does not show up in
Giotto’s Bardi chapel, it is found in Gaddi’s panel, probably the artistic
source for Benedetto da Maiano’s relief.
The martyrdom of the Franciscans in Morocco is unique in the
cycle as a whole in using the technique of continuous narrative, meaning
that the same characters appear more than once in actions occurring at
different moments and are presented together in a single unified space.
The sculptor uses variations in depth to separate the diverse moments
of action: on the left, the friars awaiting their martyrdom; then the
martyrdom itself, with the friars in the background shown entering a
church; and finally their assumption to heaven. The Franciscan narrative
paintings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, involved only
20
21
22
See J. Hankins, ‘Renaissance Crusaders: Humanist Crusade Literature in the
Age of Mehmed II’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995), pp. 111-207.
See G. Toaffin, Pio II: Lettera a Maometto, Naples 1953, pp. 113-14.
On Lorenzetti’s fresco, see M. S. Burke, ‘The Martyrdom of the Franciscans by
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’, Zeitschrift für kunstgeschichte 4 (2002), pp. 460-92.
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
monoscenic episodes, representing single moments in the life of Francis,
as exemplified in the cycles in Assisi and in Giotto’s in the Bardi
chapel. It was only in the fifteenth century that the technique of
continuous narrative was introduced into Franciscan cycles, a point in
case being Benozzo Gozzoli’s frescoes in Montefalco (1452), where
numerous episodes of the saint’s life are presented in continuous form,
yet with narrative clarity.23
The artist has drawn attention to the Moroccan sultan and his court
by placing a canopy above their heads; while the sultan, wearing an
impressive hat, looks aside and talks with one of his attendants, another
attendant evinces a gesture of horror at the scene. The focal point of
this relief, however, is the figure of the executioner, who is dramatically
beheading the friars. Instead of the benevolent sultan at the centre, as
in the preceding relief, there is a brutal killer possessing a distorted
body. The two half-naked spectators on the stairs resemble monkeys
clinging to bars. Two distinct social classes among the Saracens are
depicted: the common executioner and spectators versus the more
cultured sultan and his attendants, who are nevertheless responsible
for the vicious act. The architecture chosen for this scene is notably
different and more Oriental, thus separating the action from the
Florentine context.
There were two famous cases of martyrdom in Morocco in the
thirteenth century: one involving five missionaries sent to Marrakesh
in 1220, the other seven missionaries sent to Ceuta in 1227. The route
of the five Franciscans included Spain, Castile, Portugal, Seville and
finally Marrakesh, where they were martyred because of their persistence
in preaching Christianity. St. Anthony of Padua, after seeing the bodies
of the martyred friars, had a spiritual experience and decided to join
the Franciscans. Then, in 1227, Brother Elias sent seven friars from
Tuscany to Morocco. They too preached to the Muslims, were arrested,
imprisoned and finally martyred. Part of a letter written from prison to
Hugo, a Genoese priest, has come down to us; in it they view their
suffering as imitating the agonies of Christ. These missionaries were
23
See L. Andrews, Story and Space in Renaissance Art: The Rebirth of Continuous
Narrative, Cambridge 1998, pp. 9-11.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
idealized in Franciscan legacy as being devoted to God, fervent in
spirit and wanting with all their energies to convert the Muslims.24
There is a debate as to which of these two cases is represented on
the pulpit. According to a recent interpretation by Doris Carl, the
scene represents the martyrdom of the earlier five missionaries in
Marrakesh. Carl bases her claim on the hypothesis that the figure in
the left corner is St. Anthony of Padua.25 She therefore connects the
scene to the martyrdom of 1220, after which Anthony saw the relics of
the martyrs and decided to abandon the Augustinian order and join the
Franciscans. Carl, who dates the pulpit to around 1485, argues that in
1481 the Franciscan pope Sixtus IV had canonized the martyrs of
Marrakesh and that this explains their appearance on the pulpit. She
notes that the cult of the martyrs was first venerated by the Augustinian
friars at Santa Cruz, Portugal, and that only with the rise of the Turkish
threat and the massacre in Otranto in 1480, did the Franciscan pope
Sixtus IV canonize these martyrs.26 While I find Carl’s main line of
argument connecting the martyrdom scene with the Ottoman threat
plausible, I am less convinced regarding her identification of the scene
as that of the earlier, Marrakesh incident. First, seven missionaries are
found in the scene, not five, which seems to indicate that the
representation is of the later case, the martyrdom of the seven Franciscans
at Ceuta. The figure that Carl identifies as St. Anthony of Padua seems
to me to be simply one of the missionaries waiting for his turn to be
beheaded. With regard to the historical context, the martyrs of Ceuta
were Tuscan friars and it thus makes sense that in a Florentine institution
such as Santa Croce, Tuscan martyrs would be represented.
In either case, whether it is the Marrakesh or the Ceuta martyrs
with whom we are dealing, the pulpit’s iconography should be placed
in the context of mendicant crusade-preaching campaigns. The fact
that two scenes out of the five deal with an encounter of Franciscans
with the Muslim world, either as missionaries or as martyrs, also gains
special significance in this historical context. The second half of the
24
25
26
On these two cases, see Randolph (above, n. 15), pp. 37-54.
On Antoninus of Padua, see S. B. McHam, The Chapel of St. Anthony at the
Santo and the Development of the Venetian Renaissance Style, Cambridge 1994.
See Carl (above, n. 6).
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
fifteenth century, after the fall of Constantinople, is characterized by a
call for a crusade against the Turks. In 1443, an encyclical from Pope
Eugene IV appealed to all prelates to pay a tenth of their income to
support the war against the Turks. There were rhetorical calls by
preachers such as Bernardino da Siena and writers advocating the
crusades, without practical results. In 1453, Constantinople fell to the
Ottomans, and Nicholas V issued a bull calling for a crusade against
the Turks. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who became pope in 1458,
taking the name Pius II, initiated a meeting of the Christian powers in
Mantua in 1459 where prospects for a new crusade were discussed. In
1464, Pius II was issuing additional plans for the crusade against the
Turks. He set out for Ancona where he died before his plans for the
crusade were realized. Pius successors, Paul II and Sixtus IV, were
eager to carry on his endeavors, but no real progress was made. In
1471, the Franciscan pope Francesco della Rovere, who took the name
Sixtus IV, published an encyclical letter urging the united action of
Christendom against the common foe, condemning the Turks and calling
for their destruction. This Christian propaganda for a new crusade met
with little response in the West. In 1472, Sixtus IV corresponded with
Lodovico II Gonzaga of Mantua about how to act against the sultan;
and he began recruiting a fleet with the aim of starting a crusade
against the Turks. He tried to raise support for various crusading plans
but met with no success. In 1480 with the Turks invading Rhodes and
also Otranto in Apulia, an atmosphere of fear prevailed in Italy and a
league against the Turks that included Florence was established. In
1481, however, Mohammed II died and the Otranto was liberated,
bringing temporary relief from the pressure.27
Crusading sympathy in Tuscany, particularly in Florence, had a
long history, going back to the twelfth century. Many Florentines
throughout medieval times were active as crusaders, missionaries and
pilgrims, or at least sympathetic to the crusading movement. This
tradition continued into the fifteenth century, when Florence openly
voiced support for papal crusading efforts and participated in fund27
F. Cardini, Europe and Islam, trans. by C. Beamish, Oxford 2001; K. M. Setton,
The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571), vol. 2: The Fifteenth Century,
Philadelphia 1978, pp. 314-45; H. W. Hazard ed., A History of the Crusades,
Milwaukee 1975, vol. 3, pp. 661-65.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
raising for the crusade.28 The main supporters of crusade propaganda
in Florence were the Franciscan and Dominican preachers, who acted
as virtual papal envoys, continuing a tradition of mendicant crusade
sermons.29 The genre of crusade sermons also intensified at this time.
An example of mendicant crusade propaganda in the fifteenth century
might be taken from the preaching of the Dominican Observant preacher
Antoninus Pierozzi (1389-1459), archbishop of Florence. In his oration
before Pope Calixtus III in 1455, Antoninus made an impassioned plea
for the crusade against the Turks:
All the powers of Italy, thus united (and for this reason the more
powerful), unanimous in word and purpose, would be able to
move against the son of perdition, Mahomet, angel of Satan,
most impudent dog, violator of all laws and customs, mystic
anti-Christ who fights against everything Christian, in order to
destroy his forces and crush his audacity, and to eliminate him
from the frontiers of the faithful and to recover the territories
seized by him and sacked, and especially that once glorious city
of Constantinople now, however, unfortunately captured by him.30
Bernardino da Siena might himself have been associated with crusade
preaching,31 and his followers – among them Cherubino da Spoleto,
Giacomo della Marca, Giovanni da Capestrano, Roberto da Lecce and
Michele da Carcano – were all engaged in crusade-preaching campaigns,
many of them conducted in Florence’s Santa Croce. Cherubino da
Spoleto delivered crusade sermons in Santa Croce in 1466 and 1482.32
28
29
30
31
32
On crusade sentiments in Florence, see R. Black, Benedetto Accolti and the
Florentine Renaissance, Cambridge 1985, pp. 270-76; and the following books
by F. Cardini: Il Movimento Crociato, Florence 1972; Studi sulla storia e sull’Idea
di Crociata, Rome 1993; Toscana e Terrasanta nel Medioevo, Florence 1982.
On the traditional role of the mendicants in advocating the crusade cause, see
Maier (above, n. 16), pp. 111-60.
Antoninus, Summa Historialis, f. 299; For the translation and interpretation of
this passage, see P. Howard, ‘Diversity in Discourse: The Preaching of Archbishop
Antoninus of Florence before Pope, People and Commune’, in: J. Hamesse, B.
M. Kienzle, D. L. Stoudt, and A. T. Thayer eds., Medieval Sermons and Society:
Cloister, City, University, Louvain La Neuve 1998, pp. 283-307.
On Bernardino’s activity as a crusade preacher, see F. Donati, ‘San Bernardino
predicatore delle indulgenze per la crociata’, Bolletino senese di storia patria 2
(1895), pp. 130-36.
R. Rusconi, ‘Cherubino da Spoleto’, in: B. Bertoni ed., Dizionario Biografico
degli Italiani, Rome 1980, vol. XXIV, pp. 446-53.
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In 1443, Giacomo della Marca was nominated by Eugene IV as an
apostle for crusade preaching, along with Alberto da Sarteano, who in
1459 and again in 1463-1464 was active on behalf of Pius II in promoting
the crusade.33 Giovanni da Capestrano, another crusade preacher, was
active mainly in Tuscany in the 1450s and 1460s raising funds for the
crusade; in art, he is represented carrying a banner of the crusade.
Roberto da Lecce, according to Erasmus, during his sermons would
strip off his habit to reveal the crusader’s livery and armor underneath.34
Michele Carcano was a crusade preacher who in 1459 and 1463 gave
sermons on behalf of Pius II and in 1481 on behalf of Sixtus IV. In
Santa Croce he preached on the crusade cause in 1455, 1462, 1466,
and 1467.35 The content of these militant sermons can be shown to
inform the messages of Benedetto da Maiano’s pulpit with its ideas of
mission as in Francis courageous encounter with the Egyptian sultan
and especially martyrdom as in the heroic death of the Franciscans in
Morocco.
In short, the Saracens are portrayed ambivalently on the pulpit:
while there is admiration for the generous Egyptian sultan, combined
with interest in his and his courtiers’ exotic appearance, the Saracens
in the martyrdom scene are dehumanized and shown as animals. The
central ideas conveyed by the pulpit iconography are a mixture of
mission and martyrdom, conversion and crusade, characteristic of the
Franciscan heritage and relevant to the political and religious climate
following the Ottoman’s conquest of Constantinople.
I would suggest that this conception of the Saracens was typical of
Florentine sentiments at that time. The Florentine merchant Luca
Landucci (1460-1516) provides an interesting testimony to this
ambivalence. In his diary, Luca was often enthusiastic about crusade
efforts in Florence; in 1478, for example, he explained that fund raising
for the crusades was carried out in several churches in Florence, most
notably in the church of Santa Croce where ‘everyone had to lend aid,
33
34
35
C. Casagrande, ‘Giacomo della Marca’, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani,
vol. LIV, pp. 214-21.
M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Oxford 1988,
pp. 48-50.
R. Rusconi, ‘Michele Carcano’, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol.
XIX, pp. 742-44.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
at the said churches, to the forces sent against the Turks’.36 He often
expressed hope that Florence would join forces against the infidels
and unbelievers, and condemned the cruelty of the Turks who were
‘putting all the villages to fire and flame, carrying off the girls and
women’ and ‘selling Christians’ into slavery.37 Elsewhere in his diary,
however, he praised the generosity of the Turkish ambassador to
Florence for making a gift of exotic animals to the city, and described
approvingly the festivities and celebrations honoring him upon his
arrival:
The ambassador of the sultan presented to the Signoria the giraffe,
lion and other beasts; and he sat in the midst of the Signoria, on
the ringhiera, he speaking and they thanking him by means of
an interpreter. A great crowd had collected in the piazza that
morning to see this. The ringhiera was decorated with spalliere
and carpets, and all the principal citizens had taken their places
upon it. This ambassador remained here several months and was
maintained at our cost and presented with many gifts.38
Thus the ambivalence towards the Saracens during that period was felt
by the Franciscans as well as by their audiences.
In the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, on the other side
of town, we are confronted with a wealth of images that reflect the
complex way the Saracens were perceived by the Dominicans. We
find: Muhammad in hell (following Dante’s conception) in Nardo di
Cione’s fresco in the Strozzi Chapel; the threat of the Turks during the
Council of Florence, portrayed in Paolo Uccello’s fresco of the Flood,
in the Green Cloister; and the cruelty of the Saracens, in Filippino
Lippi’s frescoes. I hope to explore this intriguing web of images in the
near future. Here I will only allude to a few brief examples found in
Andrea da Firenze’s series of frescoes in the church’s chapter house,
particularly in the fresco known as the Via Veritatis (1365-67).39 The
36
37
38
39
See L. Landucci, A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, trans. by A. de Rosen
Jervis, New York 1971, pp. 32-33.
A Florentine Diary, pp. 26, 183.
A Florentine Diary, p. 44.
On Andrea di Bonaiuto’s Via Veritatis murals in the Spanish Chapel of Santa
Maria Novella (1365-67) see E. Borsook, The Mural Painters of Tuscany: From
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
central theme of the series is the glorification of the Dominican order.
One of the entrance walls has scenes from the Life of Saint Peter the
Martyr, with the Road to Calvary, the Crucifixion and the Descent
into Limbo opposite. Within the chapter house, the Triumph of Saint
Thomas Aquinas appears on the left, on the right there are the Church
Militant and the Church Triumphant, otherwise known as the Via
Veritatis (Fig. 4).40
Focusing our attention for a moment on the lower part of the fresco,
the Via Veritatis, we see the black and white dogs, the domini canes
racing to the right, urged on by St. Dominic who represents the zeal of
the Inquisition. In another group, twelve false heretics are having their
mistakes proven by St. Peter Martyr counting off point after point on
his fingers; the next group shows St. Thomas Aquinas holding the
Summa contra Gentiles and preaching to the disbelievers, including
Saracens. They respond in various ways, some calmly and reflective,
others by active discourse. Two kneel submissively before him in
prayer and others seem deeply affected by his arguments, one ripping
his heretical book to shreds. Other characters, however, ignore Thomas’s
teaching, one man covering his ears so as not to hear the truth he
utters.
The fresco, The Triumph of Thomas (Fig. 5), emphasizes the glory
of Dominican wisdom as personified in Thomas Aquinas, the dominant
figure at the center who is seated on a throne, surrounded by the
sacred and profane sciences, by the cardinal virtues and by various
prophets and apostles. On the base beneath him are the crouching tiny
figures of the heretics: Sabellius, Averroes and Arius. These figures
seem to be intruding into the real space of the chapter house thus
40
Cimabue to Andrea del Sarto, Oxford 1980, pp. 51-55; J. Gardner, ‘Andrea di
Bonaiuto and the Chapter House Frescoes in Santa Maria Novella’, Art History
2:2 (1979), pp. 107-38; M. Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the
Black Death, Princeton 1951, pp. 94-104; J. Polzer, ‘Andrea di Bonaiuto’s “Via
Veritatis” and Dominican Thought in Late Medieval Italy,’ Art Bulletin 77
(1995), pp. 262-89; S. Romano, ‘Due affreschi del Cappellone degli Spagnoli:
problemi iconologici’, Storia dell’ Arte 28 (1976), pp. 181-213.
D. Norman, ‘The Art of Knowledge: Two Artistic Schemes in Florence’, in her
Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, New Haven
and London 1995, pp. 217-42.
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Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
reminding us that they are excluded from the intellectual community
of the Christians. The theme of the overthrow of Averroes by St.
Thomas is illustrated in other 14th century images, of which the most
famous is the Glorification of St. Thomas Aquinas in Santa Caterina in
Pisa, attributed either to a follower of Simone Martini or to Lippo
Memmi.
Figure 4
Andrea da Firenze, Via Vertatis,
Spanish Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence (photo: Alinari)
349
Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Figure 5
Andrea da Firenze, The Triumph of Thomas,
Spanish Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence (photo: Alinari)
350
Art and Sermons: Mendicants and Muslims in Florence
Conclusion
Based on this partial evidence, some preliminary suggestions are offered
here. Both the Dominicans and the Franciscans depicted the Saracens
in a degrading manner in order to illustrate the superiority of their
orders. Yet their histories, ideologies and pictorial codes are distinct.
The Franciscans were a missionary order, for centuries maintaining
direct contact with Muslim communities in the East; in their pictorial
imagery, they presented two options: a positive experience involving a
kind Saracen ruler or a violent clash resulting in martyrdom; the
Dominicans, being devoted servants of the papacy, visualized the
encounter as a religious debate and a rivalry between philosophers.
The Franciscans, as a popular order, closer to the masses of believers
emphasized the fantastic – the trial by fire; the exotic – the figure of
the Sultan; and the violent – the savage death of the missionaries. The
Dominicans as an intellectual elite highlighted their ability to convert
the Saracens through theological arguments and the superiority of
scholastic theology over Muslim philosophy. The meeting between
flesh and blood depicted by the Franciscan legacy became that of
ideas in the Dominican heritage.
351