Decoding the Florentine Frescoes

‘Decoding the Florentine Frescoes: Hidden Religious Meanings in the Church of San Lorenzo’.

Summary of a lecture given by Dr Patrick Preston (Lecturer in Church History, University of Chichester) to the Hull & District Theological Society, Wednesday 16 February 2011.

Summary by David Bagchi

Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1557) was a painter in the Mannerist style.  This style is best illustrated by his finest work, The Deposition of Christ from the Cross, the composition of which is turbulent and perturbing, quite alien to the harmony one normally associates with the Renaissance.  Pontormo was influenced by Michelangelo, and worked for various members of the Medici family, including the popes Leo X and Clement VII, and especially Duke Cosimo I, for whom he created a series of frescoes in San Lorenzo.  The Church of San Lorenzo, built by Brunelleschi in the centre of Florence, was the Medici family church.  The frescoes (started in 1545 and completed in 1556) no longer exist, having been removed during the eighteenth century.  However, we do have descriptions of them from the sixteenth century, an engraving from 1598, and most importantly Pontormo’s own preparatory sketches.

The frescoes have attracted a good deal of attention in recent years because of the influential theory that, in their subject matter and in their arrangement, they deliberately promoted heretical views of salvation and of the church.  Several scholars have subscribed to this thesis, but by far the most developed and nuanced presentation of it is that by the Italian historian Massimo Firpo, who in his 1997 study Gli affreschi di Pontormo: Eresia, politica et cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I argued that Pontormo’s frescoes were designed as a visual representation of Valdes’ Catechism.

Juan de Valdes (c.1509-1541) was a precocious scholar and religious thinker who was influenced by Erasmus, Luther, and the alumbrados (as reform-minded humanists in Spain were called).  In 1531, while still a young man, Valdes was obliged to flee the increasingly intolerant atmosphere of Spain for Italy.  (The Roman Inquisition would not be established until 1542.)  Here he became a strong influence upon Bernardino Ochino and also inspired the religious bestseller The Benefit of Christ Crucified, which sold some 40,000 copies in Italy and popularized Protestant doctrines there: it was one of the first titles to be placed on the index of forbidden books.  Valdes’s own Catechism would also be declared heretical, because it not only stressed the doctrine of justification by faith alone but also incorporated Luther’s definitions of the Church, the relationship of Scripture to Tradition, and other heterodox positions.  In Italy, Valdes aligned himself with underground Protestants (whom Calvin and others would call ‘Nicodemites’ because, like Nicodemus in John’s Gospel, they were not open about their faith for fear of persecution).  His early death at the age of 30 was brought about, it was believed, by his ascetic lifestyle.

The argument that the frescoes reflect Protestant theology in general and Valdesian theology in particular is based both on their content and their arrangement. In terms of content, one notes for instance that there is no depiction of the Last Judgement, but instead a scene of the resurrection of the dead, which avoids any need to portray Purgatory.  The arrangement of the frescoes serves to stress the importance of original sin, to present Old Testament scenes so as to accentuate Abraham, Noah, and Moses as examples of men who lived by faith alone, to contrast Law and Gospel in a typically Lutheran manner, and culminates in a depiction of Christ in Glory, blessing the souls of the saved, rather than the conventional Christ in Judgement flanked by SS. Mary and John.

The problem with the Protestant frescoes thesis is this: why would the Medicis, with their strong links with the papacy, have promoted or even tolerated heretical frescoes in their own family church?  The notion is not as strange as it first appears. We know that Cosimo’s court at Florence contained several figures well-known for their reform sympathies, most notably the major-domo himself, Riccio, so it is possible that the inspiration came from such subordinates.  However, Cosimo took an active, even a controlling, interest in the art works he sponsored, and it is not likely that he was unaware of Pontormo’s work as it emerged over eleven years (although the sixteenth-century writer Vasari claimed that Pontormo refused to allow anyone to see the work before it was complete).  Firpo’s explanation is that Cosimo was complicit in the project from the start, and that the reason is a political one.  The Medicis had a history of bad relations with the reigning pope, Paul III, of the rival Farnese dynasty.  For a time, Florence itself was even placed under interdict.  The Medicis therefore sided against Paul Farnese and with the Holy Roman Emperor, who favoured the candidacy of Cardinal Reginald Pole to succeed Paul.  Pole (though a Catholic) was an adherent of the doctrine of justification by faith alone and was strongly associated with Valdesianism, and so the commissioning of the frescoes can be interpreted as a part of Cosimo’s pro-Imperial, anti-Farnese propaganda.

Is Firpo’s argument convincing?  A major weakness of it that the frescoes had never been seen as heretical before the rediscovery of the 1598 engraving in the 1950s.  Had the frescoes been as clearly Protestant as many modern scholars believe (though they disagree on the nature of the Protestantism, with some reading it in terms of Luther, others in terms of the Benefit of Christ Crucified, and Firpo in terms of Valdes’s Catechismo)