Wine, grain and 575 ducats was all that the maestro Luca Signorelli received in return for completing the frescoes begun by Fra Angelico to decorate the new chapel of the Duomo of Orvieto. A spectacular work inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, after which Italy proudly claims 500 years since the painter’s death.
Just over an hour and a half from Rome, this medieval city of narrow streets is perched on a rock on which rises its elegant cathedral, an example of Italian Gothic, housed in one of its side chapels, that of San Brizio a unique picture set in the world of art.
“Signorelli came to Orvieto after a search of more than 50 years by the builders of the cathedral to find an artist who would continue the work begun by Angélico,” explains archivist Noemí Grilli.
Although Signorelli (Cortona, c. 1450) has gone down in history as one of the masters of the Renaissance, he did not enjoy the prestige of his predecessor at the time because he did not work for the Renaissance papal courtalthough he was considered an efficient and fast professional.
That explains the contract that the April 5, 1499with which he committed himself to completing the ambitious work in return for accommodation, a modest sum of money, grain and wine.
“He was already a good painter, but thanks to his work in Orvieto (which was just completed three years) is one of the most important painters,” emphasizes Grilli.
In these frescoes, their The state of preservation is excellentSignorelli managed to demonstrate an unprecedented mastery of two of the obsessions that characterized the study of Renaissance artists: depth and human anatomy.
As agreed in the contract, the painter depicted on the vaults and walls the events related to the Apocalypse and the Last Judgment as imagined by Dante in the Divine Comedy.
Among his imaginative achievements, Signorelli found a way to paint the Antichrist as a subject capable of dealing with a willless Jesus Christ surrounded by humanity in its worst version, the protagonist of Massacres, executions, fights, robberies and lust.
The artist also knew how to refer to himself by inserting himself on one of the walls a portrait of himself with Fra Angelico He sat in a corner of the chapel and watched the intense activity of his scenes with a contented expression on his face.
“Signorelli created an admirable effect of illusionistic perspective by inserting the large narrative scenes and decorations into a false architectural structure that seems to expand the space of the chapel and break the walls towards the infinite horizon of apocalyptic visions,” explains historian Giordano Conticelli.
Among the scenes selected, he depicted passages such as the Last Judgment, the Resurrection of the Corpses, the Preaching of the Antichrist, etc of paradise and hell, both full of naked bodies, violence and erotic innuendo.
The fake architectures that surround and separate each stage, as well as the expressiveness and rawness of its protagonists, set a precedent for other artists like Michelangelo, who, years later, began painting the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael, whose frescoes perfected the technique developed by Signorelli.
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