Page 181: Cloister of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: three water scenes (Sodoma, around 1500)
... on the second side of the cloister, there’s a section of three episodes that all have to do with water.
Page 181: Benedict's prayer: water springs from the rocks
In the first, Benedict responds to the complaint of several monks that their monastery, high on the side of the mountain, has no source of water and it’s a great labor to descend every day to the lake in the valley to fetch water.
Page 181: Benedict restores the iron hoe
The next episode concerns a laborer referred to as the “Goth” from the tribes in the north, not a monk but a faithful and beloved member of the community who one day is clearing away the briars along the lake to make fruitful soil when the head of his hoe flies off the handle and into the lake.
Page 181: Obedient to Benedict, Maurus runs across the water
The third episode occurs in the lake. The young monk Placidus loses his footing while filling a pail with water, and is drowning in the lake.
Page 182: Brancacci Chapel, The Tribute Money, Masaccio (1420s)
For example, in the panel commonly labeled as “The Tribute Money” in the Brancacci Chapel, Masaccio includes three episodes from the story of Jesus’s encounter with the collector of the temple tax (told in Matthew 17:24-27).
Page 183: Giovanni Pisano, Pulpit in the church of Sant'Andrea, Pistoia (1301)
... in the Pistoia pulpit, the first panel contains the three episodes of the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Shepherds. (Photograph by the author)
Page 183: Pulpit in Sant'Andrea, Pistoia
When looking up at the panel from that point of view, the inaugural scene of the Annunciation comes perfectly into focus, with Mary drawing her hand to her breast in response to Gabriel’s announcement that she will bear the Son of God. (Photograph by the author)
Page 183: Ghiberti, Scenes from Genesis on the East Doors of the Florence Baptistry
The panel at the top left of the door deals with the Creation and Fall, packing a lot into the space. The scenes, in every possible gradient of relief, follow no regular pattern of movement.
Page 184: Ghiberti, Scenes from the story of Noah, East Doors, Baptistry
In the panel given to the story of Noah and the Ark, the three episodes depicted on the panel all occur after the flood.
Page 185: The Chapter House of Santa Maria Novella, Florence (Andrea da Firenze, 1360s)
St. Thomas Aquinas defeats or confounds the basic forms of heresies represented in the heretics at his feet; we can also turn to historical figures such as Tubalcain and Euclid as the primitive founders of the liberal arts now ensconced in the curriculum.
Page 185: The Chapter House of Santa Maria Novella
However, the adjacent and central wall does tell a story, that of the Crucifixion, with episodes that begin at the lower left corner with Jesus’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and concludes in the lower right corner with Christ’s Harrowing of Hell before he makes his resurrected appearance above ground, so to speak.
Page 185: The library of Pope Julius II ("The School of Athens"), painted by Raphael around 1510
Rather, the complex arrangement of figures unfolding from the central figures of Plato (finger pointing up to the realm of the ideal forms) and Aristotle (palm down towards the material world in which ideas are actualized) dramatizes not a narrative but a theme ...
Page 188: Scenes from the life of John the Baptist, Florence Baptistry (Andrea Pisano, 1330s)
We noted that the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues plus Humility are placed at the base of scenes from the life of John the Baptist on the earliest set of doors created for the baptistry in Florence.
Page 188: Humility, on the south doors of the Florence Baptistry
(Humility added to the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love)
Page 188: Virtues on the Baptismal font in the Baptistry of Siena
Elegant statues of six female figures representing the seven cardinal and theological virtues minus Temperance are placed at the corners of the hexagonal baptismal font in Siena.
Page 188: The Scrovegni Chapel in Padova, painted by Giotto in the early 1300s
Giotto’s narratives of the Virgin Mary and Jesus frescoed on the walls of the Scrovegni family chapel in Padova includes, with labels, the virtues and vices lining the decorative level at eye-level; the three theological and four cardinal on the right side, with their opposites on the left.
Page 188: Fortitude in the Scrovegni Chapel
Foolishness is opposite Prudence; Fortitude opposite Inconstancy; Temperance to Wrath; Justice to Injustice; Faith to Infidelity; Love to Envy; Hope to Desperation.
Page 188: Inconstancy
Page 188: Wrath
Page 188: Envy
Page 188: Caiaphas the high priest rending his robe
The figure of Caiaphas, for instance, rends his robe identically to how the figure of Wrath rips open his garment, suggesting (perhaps) that his righteous indignation at Jesus’s blasphemy can be understood as unrighteous anger against God for sending a Messiah so unsuitably like that imagined by Isaiah and the prophets.
Page 188: Allegory of Good Government, Siena Town Hall (Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1330s)
In the Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Siena town hall, the virtues and vices relevant for civic ill- or well-being are placed not in the decorative bottom level but form the very stuff of the main scenes on the wall, where the four cardinal virtues plus Peace and Magnanimity stand opposite the features of Tyranny: Deceit, Cruelty, Fraud, Furor, Division, and War.
Page 188: Allegory of Bad Government, Siena Town Hall
In the Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Siena town hall, the virtues and vices relevant for civic ill- or well-being are placed not in the decorative bottom level but form the very stuff of the main scenes on the wall, where the four cardinal virtues plus Peace and Magnanimity stand opposite the features of Tyranny: Deceit, Cruelty, Fraud, Furor, Division, and War.
