Church History through the centuries

Week 13 · 13th century: AD 1201–1300

Artwork

Madonna and Child

  • Title: Madonna and Child
  • Artist: Berlinghiero (Berlinghiero Berlinghieri of Lucca)
  • Date made: possibly the 1230s (the museum gives no exact year)
  • Medium: tempera on wood, gold ground
  • Current location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession 60.173)
  • Source page · Image file
  • License: CC0 1.0 (Met Open Access)

Saint Francis and scenes from his life

  • Title: Saint Francis of Assisi and Scenes of His Life (the Pescia altarpiece)
  • Artist: Bonaventura Berlinghieri
  • Date made: 1235 (the painted date on the panel)
  • Medium: tempera on wood
  • Current location: Church of San Francesco, Pescia, Italy
  • Source page · Web Gallery of Art record
  • License: Public domain (a faithful photo of a work by an artist who died long ago), per the Commons file page

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

  • Title: Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
  • Artist: Giotto di Bondone
  • Date made: about 1295 to 1300 by many scholars; the Louvre catalogue gives 1300 to 1325
  • Medium: tempera and gold on panel
  • Current location: Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 309)
  • Source page
  • License: Public domain, per the same Commons file page

What you see

The first panel shows Mary holding the child Jesus against a gold background. Her blue robe is dark, and her large hand points to him. He raises one hand in blessing. The second panel shows Francis standing in his plain brown habit. Six small scenes from his life surround him. The third panel shows Francis kneeling on a hillside. A winged figure of the crucified Christ sends rays to his hands, feet, and side. Below, three small scenes show a pope’s dream, the approval of the Rule, and Francis preaching to birds.

Why it matters

These three panels show how thirteenth-century Italian painting moved from the stiff Byzantine style toward lifelike figures. Berlinghieri’s altarpiece still uses the Byzantine style, called the “Greek manner.” It is one of the earliest images of Francis after his canonization, made only nine years after his death. Giotto, about sixty years later, gives Francis weight, space, and feeling. His small predella scenes show Innocent III’s dream of a falling church, the pope’s approval of the Franciscan Rule, and the sermon to birds. Together the works show how fast the Franciscan movement spread. They also show that Francis became the model saint of the age.

Christ and the sacraments

The Madonna and Child confesses the incarnation: the Son of God took a real human body from Mary. That is the same truth the Fourth Lateran Council confessed against the Cathars, who said Christ’s body was only apparent. Giotto’s Francis receives the marks of Christ’s wounds, which points to the cross. Lutherans honor Francis’s love for Christ. They hold that the cross saves through faith alone. Christ gives himself in the Word and Sacraments.

Teaching question

The Cathars denied that Christ had a real body, and Lateran IV answered them. How does confessing Christ as God and man in one person shape what Christians receive in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper? Read Augsburg Confession III and Solid Declaration VIII. An artistic image does not set doctrine. Use the confessional texts to test what each picture teaches.

Sources