Legend of the True Cross / Piero S Frescoes at Arezzo

LEGEND OF THE TRUE CROSS / PIERO’S FRESCOES AT AREZZO

(painted some time between 1447 and 1466)

Robert Baldwin

Associate Professor of Art History

Connecticut College

New London, CT 06320

(This essay was written in 1998.)

The Cross as Object of Worship, Trophy of Christian Triumph and Emblem of Christian World History

From the early Christian period on, the cross became the most important symbol of Christianity, an independent subject for Christian worship, art, literature, and religious festivity, and the focus of two official feast days in the Christian calendar. The legend of the cross unites five time periods: 1) the beginning of history with Adam and Eden, 2) the time of Solomon and the Temple of Jerusalem, 3) the life of Christ, 4) the period of Constantine when Christianity was legitimized by the Roman state (early fourth century A.D.), 5) and the later Byzantine empire (

According to legend, the cross came from a branch from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. An angel gave the branch to Seth, the son of Adam, telling him to plant the branch on his father’s grave and when the resulting tree bore fruit (i.e. the crucified Christ), Adam would again be made whole.

The legend continues with King Solomon building the Temple of Jerusalem. His carpenters are struck by a magnificent beam of wood cut from the tree growing over Adam’s grave but they are unable to use the wood in building the temple and cast it aside as a bridge over a stream. Arriving on a visit to Solomon, the Queen of Sheba recognizes the importance of the wood and refuses to step on it, telling Solomon the wood will bring the destruction of the Jewish people. He has it buried secretly. Centuries later, a miraculous pond develops at the site of the buried cross and when the wood floats to the surface, the Romans use it to crucify Christ.

The cross then lay forgotten in the earth with the other two crosses used to crucify the two thieves for more than three hundred years until the time of Constantine. On the night of a decisive battle against a rival emperor, Maxentius, Constantine had a dream in which an angel held up a cross and said, “Conquer in the name of this sign”. Marching under the banner of the cross, Constantine’s forces triumphed the next day. Constantine then went on to proclaim Christianity the official Roman state religion. See the account written by Constantine’s biographer, Eusebius, on the CD, or the later account in the Golden Legend in the section on the Holy Cross.

Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, traveled to Jerusalem to search for the original cross and discovered a local Jew named Judas knew its secret location. She tortured him until he revealed his secret. Judas dug up the three crosses and tested each one on a dead person, discovering the true cross when it revived the corpse. Judas was converted and went on to become bishop of Jerusalem.

Helena left most of the cross in a new chapel in Jerusalem. The rest she brought back to Constantinople. When the Persian army of King Chosroes conquered Jerusalem in the early 7th century, he took the cross as a trophy back to his court. He was later defeated in 629 AD by the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius, whose army marched under the banner of the Cross like that of Constantine. Heraclius offers Chrosroes a choice of conversion or death. He chooses the latter and is beheaded near his throne. Heraclius recovers the cross and returns it to Jerusalem. Just outside the city gates, Heraclius is stopped by a miraculous collapse of the city gate and an angel who appears, chiding him for his pride and reminding him of the humility of Christ who entered Jerusalem on an ass. Heraclius dismounts, strips off his courtly robes and shoes, and carries the cross into Jerusalem, barefoot. [i] All of these episodes appear in Voragine’s Golden Legend and in Piero’s frescoes.

Parts of the true cross (or pieces of wood described as such) were distributed as political gifts to rulers, monastic orders, and politically-connected churches in the West. By the mid-thirteenth century, the Franciscans managed to gain control over two sites which greatly boosted their political importance within the competing factions of the church: the chapel outside Jerusalem where the cross was supposedly discovered by St. Helena, mother of the 4th century Roman Emperor Constantine and the church at the site of the crucifixion. Capitalizing on their own considerable influence, the Franciscans of Florence managed to acquire a piece of the true cross in the early fourteenth century. To honor this major relic, encourage a steady stream of pilgrims, and proclaim their special ties with the Savior and the Holy Lands, the Franciscan order in Florence built the church of San Croce (Holy Cross). In the 1360s, they commissioned Agnolo Gaddi to decorate it with a fresco cycle on the history of the cross. Other Franscican churches followed suit with similar fresco cycles including Cenni di Francesco’s History of the Cross in the church of San Francesco in Volterra (1410) and Piero’s cycle at San Francesco in Arezzo (ca. 1447-1466). Though no documentation survives, it is likely the church of San Francesco in Arezzo also had a relic of the true cross.

On one level, the increasingly elaborate stories told about the history of the cross were part of its elaboration as an objection of devotion. On another level, the history of the cross intersected with a cultural tradition of Christian world history or universal history where all of time is structured by divine providence as a coherent, linear sequence running from Creation to the Last Judgement. As an expression of universal ideals throughout time and space, world history always includes a geographical rhetoric of universal dominion and cosmic or global unity. Because world history deals with time unfolding according to a master plan dictated by God, it appealed greatly to court and church culture and to all-powerful rulers who imagined themselves as terrestrial agencies of a divine plan. While the merchant family which commissioned Piero’s frescoes were hardly proponents of a courtly ideology of global rule and triumph, the frescoes tied directly to the major military threats facing a universal Christian religion in the mid-fifteenth century: the Moslem army threatening the Christian Byzantine empire in the east, and the black Muslim empire in Moorish Spain. The Franciscan order also had important ties to the chapels of the Cross in the threatened Holy Land. Despite the lack of a direct tie to court culture, it is not difficult to explain the appearance of a cosmic world history, geared around the theme of the cross, in a Franciscan church in Arezzo. (For more on world history, see my lecture, “Humanism, History” on the CD. )

Piero’s Fresco Cycle at the Church of San Francesco, Arezzo

Piero’s fresco history of the cross was painted for the main chapel behind the high altar at the church of San Francesco (St. Francis) in Arezzo. The crucifixion doesn’t appear in his fresco cycle because it was already present in the thirteenth century Crucifixion by an anonymous artist hanging over the altar in mid-air. St. Francis appears at the feet of this Christ, kissing the bleeding wounds.

Period I: The Beginning of Human History. Garden of Eden / Life of Adam and Eve

RIGHT WALL, TOP SCENE. AT RIGHT, THE DYING ADAM AND HIS SONS WITH THE ANGEL GIVING SETH THE BRANCH IN THE BACKGROUND. AT LEFT, SETH PLANTS THE BRANCH BESIDE THE CORPSE OF ADAM WHILE EVE LAMENTS

By borrowing visual types from the popular themes of the Lamentation and Pieta, Piero’s withered Eve lamenting the dead Adam refer forward in time to the age of Christian redemption when the “second Eve,” Mary, will grieve over the death of the second Adam,” Christ. In this way, Piero weaves his potentially separate episodes together into a larger world history.

The dead Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil shown here underlines the theme of death as the punishment for sin while hinting at the resurrection and new life which will eventually come through the second tree transplanted by Seth near the grave of Adam, the tree which will become the Tree of Life bearing the fruit of the crucified Christ. The dead tree also suggests the spiritual death of Judaism, contrasted to the Tree of Life, amplifying the conflict between Judaism and Christianity which plays out in this Christian world history. This is particularly important for Franciscan piety in the mid-fifteenth century. The most influential Franciscan preacher in Arezzo, Siena, and Florence at this time, and a leading anti-Semite and persecutor of homosexuals, was St. Bernardino of Siena. Piero frescoes his portrait to the right of the scene with the tortured Jew, looking over as if supervising the torture himself.

Period II: Later Old Testament / Prophets / Quen of Sheba Visits King Solomon

REAR WALLS, TOP REGISTER PROPHETS

RIGHT WALL, MIDDLE SCENE. QUEEN OF SHEBA KNEELS TO WORSHIP THE BEAM AT LEFT / CONFERS WITH SOLOMON AT RIGHT / SMALL SCENE ON REAR WALL: CROSS IS BURIED

The unsuitability of the wooden beam for Temple of Solomon heralds the conflict between Judaism and Christianity as does the prediction that the wooden beam will destroy the Jews. Here we see the global rhetoric of Christian universal history and the stigmatizing of Judaism. An African queen is privileged with a higher Christian awareness than the “blind” and fearful Jewish king, Solomon. Given the evil associations of blackness in Western culture, the Queen of Sheba and her ladies in waiting appear as white.

Period III: The Life of Christ

LEFT WALL. LOWER REAR WALL. ANNUNCIATION

CRUCIFIX BY AN ANONYMOUS ARTIST – HUNG OVER THE ALTAR

As church art, every Annunciation needs to be seen in terms of the sacrament of Communion. Christ’s body descends into the Virgin and into the bread on the altar. Every Annunciation in church also refers to the Virgin as Ecclesia. In the context of a world history, this takes on a special twist. The Annunciation can also be read as the beginning of the Church. Since late medieval images of the Crucifixion sometimes showed Ecclesia emerging in birth from the wounded side of Christ, the Crucifix should also be seen as as an image of the early church, understood as Christ’s sacramental body.

Period IV: Late Roman Imperial – Early Christian under reign of Roman Emperor Constantine / Early 4th Century AD

RIGHT WALL, BOTTOM, VICTORY OF CONSTANTINE OVER MAXENTIUS; SMALL SCENE ON REAR WALL, DREAM OF CONSTANTINE

LEFT WALL, MIDDLE LEVEL, THREE CROSSES DUG UP AND TESTED. SMALL SCENE ON REAR WALL: JEW TORTURED

A detailed cityscape of modern Arezzo appears in the background of the Discovery and Testing of the Three Crosses. While this can be read simply as an example of the civic pride and patriotism endemic in Renaissance Italy, it also inserts a contemporary, fifteenth-century reference into Piero’s universal Christian history. Since the story here takes place outside Jerusalem, Piero flatters Arezzo by comparing it to Jerusalem. The cityscape also underscores ties between historic Jerusalem and the modern Franciscans.

Period V: Early Byzantine Empire: 7th Century A.D.

PIERO: RIGHT WALL, UPPER FRESCO

Period VI: End of Time. Last Judgement painted on the frame outside the chapel by another artist

Piero’s Frescoes as World History and Christian Victory over Moslems, Jews, and Moors

Piero’s frescoes at Arezzo were part of a world history beginning with Adam and Eve and running through the Old Testament, the life of Christ, the early Christian period (Constantine and Heraclius) and ending in the Last Judgement painted by Bicci di Lorenzo on the wall just outside and over the chapel. Taken at face value, Piero’s frescoes showed the triumph of Christianity over its various enemies throughout time: the Jews (Solomon, Judas), the pagans (Maxentius and Cupid) the infidels (King Chosroes and the Persians) and the devil (Last Judgement). The victories over Maxentius and Chosroes appear at the lower register, facing each other, visually reinforcing the larger theme of a single, continuous history structured around the rise of a triumphant Christianity. Piero also pairs the Annunciation with the angel visiting Constantine, underscoring the Divine Providence guiding all historical time. Other visual comparisons appear vertically, linking successive episodes compositionally and thematically.

By painting three black Moorish faces, a crescent moon, and a scorpion, an anti-Semitic emblem, on the banners and shields of the defeated Persian King Chosroes and another black face on the banner of defeated Maxentius, and by including the episode of the tortured Jew, Piero’s frescoes referred more specifically to two groups increasingly targeted as enemies of Christianity in the mid fifteenth century Europe: Muslims (Turks and Moors) and Jews. (The shield with the black face is partly obscured by the heads below the banner with the rampant lion.)

The Turkish Threat and the Collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453

The first of these groups, coded as Eastern by the Persian army of Chosroes, was the Turkish infidel whose military campaign against the Byzantine empire and its capital of Constantinople began in the late thirteenth century. By the early fourteenth century, the Ottoman Turks controlled almost all of the former Byzantine territories as far west as the Balkan peninsula and down into Africa into Egypt, Libya, and Morocco. In 1453, a few years before or after Piero painted his frescoes in Arezzo, Constantinople finally fell, and with it, a thousand year Christian empire. With the loss of Constantinople, Christianity could no longer describe itself easily as a universal religion. Even if the frescoes are dated to the period just before the fall of Constantinople - 1447-51 – the Turkish conquest of Greece and the Balkans put Turkish forces within easy striking distance of Italy and Vienna. The fate of Christian civilization weighed heavily on the mind of Christian Europe. This was especially true for groups like the Franciscans who safeguarded some of the most sacred sites in the Holy Lands.