medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
John Dillon and Jim Buslag's point about haloes having been repainted after
canonization triggers another thought. From the televison pictures of these
saints, which scanned them for a couple of seconds in close-up, the faces
struck me as quite heavily repainted. Near-contemporary re-tooling of
haloes upon canonization seems unlikely in the case of what were evidently
quite small subsidiary panels, but I wouldn't put it past a
nineteenth-century restorer to re-gild the backgrounds with haloes.
The distinction between Beati and Saints looks to be rigidly upheld by Fra
Angelico himself in the National Gallery panel, and also in his two
Depositions. If memory serves me, one of Gerge Kaftal's several volume set
on images of the saints includes another Dominican panel of beati, and goes
into the halo issue a bit more. It's attributed to someone like 'the Master
of the Dominican Beati'. One would certainly expect the Dominicans to be
strict about these things.
So- two beati, canonised by a restorer, is something to bear in mind.
Laura
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Dillon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 20 November 2006 21:27
Subject: Re: Fra Angelico's mystery saints
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
As has already been noted in this thread, some orders extended the
convention of full haloes for saints to beati whose saintliness they were
actively affirming. Examples already mentioned include the Augustinian
Agostino Novello, shown here in the famous altarpiece by Simone Martini (ca.
1333-36) :
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/s/simone/4altars/5agostin/1agostin.jpg
and the Carmelite Albert of Trapani, shown here in a painting of ca. 1430 by
Filippo Lippi:
http://www.wga.hu/html/l/lippi/filippo/1430/1madonna.html
http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/immagine.php?id=38
Is there any reason to believe that Dominicans could not be equally
latitudinarian in this regard? If they were, then one might reduce "loads
of Dominican beati" to just those Dominican beati whose causes the order was
actively pursuing and/or who may have enjoyed a contemporary cult within its
Roman province.
Best again,
John Dillon
PS: The Dominican worthies portrayed in roundels beneath Fra Angelico's
fresco of the Crucifixion in the chapter room of San Marco in Florence
include several whose haloes are full rather than radiate (among the latter,
BTW, are the portraits of Jordan of Saxony and of Nicola Paglia I noted
earlier). These were once attributed to assistants, but William Hood, _Fra
Angelico at San Marco_ (Yale U.P., 1993), 187-88, has no difficulty in
assigning them to A. himself. Apart from Dominic, two (Ramond of Peņafort,
Vincent Ferrer) have what appear to be full haloes:
http://tinyurl.com/yg3wlv
But these may be due to repainting after their canonizations. For the full
list, see Hood, op. cit., p. 317, n. 66.
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