Santa Maria sopra Minerva in inglese, Storia dell'arte moderna a Roma e nel Lazio

THE MIRACLE

Below the Hellespontine Sibyl int the west wall, the lunette painting represents God's revelation to

the faithful in terms of a miralce and thus offers a second parallel between Part I of the Summa

theologica and the thematic sequence in the chapel frescoes.

In choosing a miracle for the subjet of Philippino's painting , perhaps because three considerations

have been ignored: the hagiographical sources, the sermons for the feast day celebrations at the

Minerva, and the reforms Carafa sought to promote in the Dominican order. On the basis of this

combination of visual, literary, and historical evidence, we shall see that Filippino used a specific

miracle from St. Thomas life as a point of departure for his broader theme of moral virtue which

had specific relevance to both Carafa and frias.

The “Miracle of Chastity” occurred during the trials which St. Thomas endured after deciding to

become a Dominican frars despite his family's oposition.

Historians have cited both the Dominican friar leaving Thomas and the books beneath the crucifix

as evidence that the painting corresponds to the “Miracle of the speaking cross”; yet these are as

appropriate to the “Miracle of Chastity”. Williams of Tocco remarks that during Thoma's captivity

he read the Bible, taught his sisters the sacred text, studied the writing of provides ample reason for

a pileof books in Thomas's room.

The excited figure also serves Filippino as an important contrast with Thoma's composure and as a

compositional link to the righ – side group.

This group of figures always had posed a problem in the interpretation fo the painting as the

“miracle of the speaking cross”, which, we remember, occurred while Thomas prayed alone in the

Dominican Priory, where his family was not welcome and thus is not likely to have portrayed there.

Inppropriate inclusion of the family at this miracle would make Filippino a pratictioner of the poetic

license that Savonarola condemned in late fifteenth – century painting. The easy hypothesis also is

historically more accurate – namely that the “Miracle of Chastity” not only jutifies the presence of

the Aquinas family but also contribues significantly to the full meaning of the painting and

determines Filippino's choice of composition.

Two women, differentiated in age but dressed similarly, stand at the edge of the group closest to the

compositional center. The first should be Marotta, St. Thomas's youngere sister, whom the

biographers mention just before they relate the “Miracle of Chastity”. She, reflecting Thomas's

teaching during the period of his captivity, joined the Benedictines, and eventually became abbess

of Santa Maria in Capua. Even the subtle, gray – lavander color of her dress seems to exude calm.

In addition, this dress, togheter with its long veil cvering her hair, corresponds to fashionalbe

Meapolitans style and thus suggests her upper -class status. The nobility Marotta's features anda the

pure white of her veil subtly sidtinguish her from the oldere, more coarsley featured woman

wearing a cream colored veil who stand to her right. Apparently, this woman represents Thoma's

mother, Donna Theodora, whose importance to the story requires inclusion, but whose negative role

limits Filippino's emphasis upon her.

As a contrast to the women, the dynamic young man they wacht in front of them should represent

Rainaldo, the chief actor in the conspiracy aginst Thomas. Stron light falls from right to highlith his

gold cloak, expressive face, and gesticualtions. Although he turns ot the ta collector in the Brancacci

chapel Tribute Money, which Filippino would have known well from the early 1480s, when he

completed the fresco cycle. Compared to Masaccio's figure, however, Rainaldo has gained size and

weight.

By far the most difficult identification of the group remains the old man with the white beard and

exotic costume. Some have labeled him Thoma's fathr attending the “miracle of the Speaking cross”

, while others have called him one of a variety of evil types. His hat resembled an Ottoman – period

Turkish turban.

The narrative begins in the quiet left – hand corner were Thomas and the angels, set apart on the

raised platform, kneel humbly before rhe wooden crucifix suspended from a corner pier. By placing

Thomas in three – quarter position at the left of the composition, Filippino also makes him the focus

of attention for anyone looking up to the lunette from the chapel entrance at least six meters away.

The artist then records the shock of the miracle as it spreads across the expressions and gestures of

the others who perceive the event in varied degrees of comprehension. For example. Friar John

creates an important transition from the alcove to the vestibule by glancing back but simultaneously

moving forward with that raised, open – handed gesture found so often in the work of both

Filippino and his father. The child's arms echo John's in a reserved minor key, so to speak, while the

dog backs towards Marotta and thus links the left and right – side group.

While her columnar skirt and off- center position associate her with the receding architectural

verticals, her tilted head and directed gaze continue the movement to Rainaldo. He stands closeto

the froreground edge of the fresco, his long left leg in a right red boot and green stocking providing

powerful orthogonal into the composition that ends in his pointed right index finger pushe

demphatically against the Count's shoulder, Filippino concludes the compositional movement to the

right to St. Thomas's father, who turn back again to face Rainaldo, his firm, downward gesture

grounding the action. Landulf of Aquino thus is represented with the dignity accorded the father of

the saint, yet as a man whose life had been dedicated to an enemy of the Church, whose oriental and

quasi – pagan dress reflected the infamous court style of the Emperor, and whose opinions put him

into conflict with his youngest son's religions predilections.

At the compositional center of the painting, Filippino placed the small boy seated in the foreground

of the vestibule floor who tries to move away from the white fluffy dog tearing at his garments. The

child is not the wings, and the dog is not the black and white animal with the Dominican order as in

Andrea Bonaiuti's Triumph of the Church in Santa Maria Novella in Florence or as in Fra

Angelico's The Glorification of St. Dominic in missal 558. These two centrally placed figures do

have a significant meaning, though different from the suggest by Berthier.

The motif of children chased by dogs occurs peiodically within religious paintings by Filippino's

contemporaries such as Benozzo Gozzoli, Pintoricchio, and Cosimo Rosselli, but it appears in

marginal positions. By contrast, the Carfa child's central position and seated posture correspond

with two nearly contemporary image by Florentines: Fra Filippo Lippi's Birth of St. Stephen (1452

– 1466) in the cathedral choir of Prato, and Atavanti's child holds a bunch of grapes away from an

ape as both sit before an altar. The model for the seated child in all three painting deirves from a

caracteristic type of Hellenistic sculpture most frequently used to represent the infant Hercules

struggling with snakes, a theme of virtue overcoming vice which would have reinforced the

implications of Triumphant virtue for the fifteenth - century paintings. Like Fra Filippino and

Attavanti, Filippino uses the seated child's turned position to indicate his resistance to the

threatening, disagreable adversary. The child raises his small arms, drops an object on the floor, and

looks back at the dog.

The landscape and the architectural setting of the composition also contribute to the identification of

the second miracle. Certainly the vestibule and loggia are not pure fantasy, as has been suggest, but

a reflection of contemporary fifteenth – century secular, domestic architecture such, for example, as

the upper section of the Palazzo Venezia's garden loggiato, which would have been appropriate for

the Aquinas palace at Roccasecca, but not the loggiato of St. Nicholas at San Domenico Maggiore

in Naples. The painted decoration of the lunette architecture reflects the common preference for

grotesque shown among Florentine and Umbrian artists interested in the antique at this time.

Filippino, however, adds specific references to both carafa and Thomas: the book, the sun face, and

marine designs.

Te city scape could be identified as either Rome or Naples; no specific monuments confirm it. He

certainly has aligned the Ancient Roman ruins wih the heads of the pagan – spirited Rainaldo and

Landulf, while he placd the bell tower topped with a cross, the two cupolas also part of a churc, and

the gate closing off a garden or cloister – a well know symbol of puruty – above the allegory of the

child and dog. Filippino fenforces the compositional unity by coordinating the colors, particularly

the reds repeated at regular intervals; the red cloth behind Thomas; Landolfo's garmentes;

Rainaldo's boots; the ount's hat and robe. At the same time, however, the artist istablished a

compositional tension that reduces movement toward the right.

Certainly Cardinal Carfa must have considered the “ Miracle of chastity” an exemplum to the friars

at the Minerva. St. Thomas's personal virtue and his choice of a religious vocation demanding such

commitment to the order an inspiring contrast to the feudal status and wealth of the Aquinas family

whom the saint fled “as if they were sirens” , says Valla. Filippino transformed the simple medieval

narrative into an elaborate dramatic visual example of contrasts. Thereby he established anothr link

in the sequence of images on the west wall alluding to part I of the Summa, contributing a scene

that depicted Thomas's virtuous life, and instructing the friars in the importance of moral

commitment to the order which might demand, as Pucci put it, a heroic strength of will. The final

fresco on this wall represents the other theme the humanists stressed in connection with Thomas,

and still a third way in wich mortals may know God – through learning the Word God.

THE TRIUMPH

Despite the usual characterization of this fresco as St. Thomas's triumph over eretics, there is a

much broader meaning for late quattrocento viewer than the conventional Dominican iconography.

The Triumph, the third and last painting in this sequence related to Part I of the Summa Theologica,

presents an epistemological theme – the way in which God, through the revelation of grace, infuses

man's naural reason with a knowledge of the Christian mysteries.

Filippino paints the personifications of Grammar and Dialectic cradles a snake, symbolic of her art

of syllogism. They represent three arts of the Trivium, which consitued the first three of the

SevenLliberal Arts. All teologians had to begin th