Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 10386
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Long , Jane C.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Salvation Through Meditation: The Tomb Frescoes in the Holy Confessors Chapel at Santa Croce in Florence [one prominently portrays a female donor]
  • Source URL: Gesta (Full Text via JSTOR) 34, 1 (1995): 77-88. Link Info target = '_blank'>Gesta (Full Text via JSTOR) 34, 1 (1995): 77-88. Link Info
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Art History- Painting Burials Donor Portraits Florence- Church of Santa Croce, Holy Confessors Chapel Gaddi, Taddeo, Painter Iconography Maso di Banco, Painter Meditation Patronage, Artistic Women in Art
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Italy
  • Century: 14
  • Primary Evidence: Painting; Florence. Church of Santa Croce, Holy Confessors Chapel. Last Judgement and Entombent frescoes.
  • Illustrations: Three photographs of the Last Judgement and the Entombment from Holy Confessors Chapel. One photograph of Giotto's Last Judgement. One photograph of Lorenzetti's Entombment.
  • Table:
  • Abstract: The two undocumented tomb frescoes in the Holy Confessors Chapel at Santa Croce in Florence were probably painted by Maso di Banco and Taddeo Gaddi around 1340. Representing the Last Judgement and the Entombment of Christ, they have long puzzled scholars because of their depictions of the donors, which are unusually conspicuous for this period. In the past scholars have tended to read the portraits as expressions of the patrons' hubris, typical of the emerging Renaissance emphasis on the individual. This article proposes that the purpose of the donor figures is entirely spiritual, however. Their presence suggests that the narratives are visions conjured up by the donors' pious meditations and thus transforms the scenes from mere illustrations of biblical narrative into vehicles of salvation. [Reproduced by permission of the International Center of Medieval Art.]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation:
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1995.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: Not Available
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