Basilique d'Assise, retour

The St. Francis cycle is usually dated after 1296 (Vasari records that the cycle was commissioned by Giovanni da Murro, who only became General of the Franciscans in 1296). However, according to some experts, Giotto was probably working in Assisi by about 1290 and the cycle was painted at about this time. This earlier dating is based on the opinion that the stylistic differences between the Assisi and Paduan frescoes can be only explained by the existence of a long interval between the execution of the two cycles.

The walls on which the scenes of the life of St. Francis appear, which project out slightly beyond the upper part of the wall, have been elaborated by painted mock architectural elements. This begins with the painted curtain running beneath the scenes of St Francis and culminates in the fictive architectural framing of the scenes. Each bay of the nave is divided into three sections (four in the case of the wider bay nearest the entrance) by twisted columns rising from the base painted so that it appears to project above the architrave.

So resolute was Giotto's desire to impose this system of architectural illusionism that when the fictive framings meet the projection of a real rib descending from the vault they are seen to slant downwards when viewed from the side. The fact that the same framing appears to be perfectly horizontal when viewed from the centre provides a valuable indication of what the artist considered to be the ideal position for looking at the frescoes.

The scenes of the life of St. Francis appear to be set in space behind the mock architectural framework, which has been painted to appear as part of the walls of the church. This gives the effect of looking into a series of small rooms, and calls to mind Leon Battista Alberti's concept (when discussing painting in the fifteenth century) of the surface of a painting as an open window through which we imagine we are seeing what is represented.

The scenes are planned according to principles of perspective that were first formulated in the two scenes from the life of Isaac on the upper walls. There can be no doubt that such a coherent conception of space was regarded as a discovery, and that it was an innovation of immeasurable value to the future of Western painting. It was just this methodically constructed space of the Assisi frescoes that met with immediate and widespread acclaim, first in Italy, and then abroad, especially from the second half of the fourteenth century.

The decoration of the Upper Church was planned from the very beginning to conclude with the Legend of St Francis on the lower walls, which protrude slightly beyond the upper walls. The whole was conceived according to a scheme which incorporated both the iconographical and the decorative aspects of the frescoes. No representation in the Upper Church is duplicated, except for the Crucifixion, which appears among the scenes in the nave, and is repeated on either side on the east walls of the transept. In this case the repetition was intentional, and must have been planned from the beginning, as is demonstrated by the fact that the two scenes appear in the same position in the Lower Church, where the aim of the old thirteenth century decorations, destroyed when the side-chapels were built, was to establish parallels between the life of Christ and that of St Francis. This idea was repeated in the Upper Church with greater richness and with the inclusion of scenes from the Old Testament. At certain points the parallel becomes very evident; for instance, the Confimation of the Rule appears below Isaac blessing Jacob, and the Death and Ascension of St Francis (who has just received the stigmata) below the Crucifixion.

Upper Church, San Francesco, Assisi Giotto was born in about 1267, and must have been active before the last decade of the thirteenth century. The first clear signs of the nature of his artistic revolution are to be found in fresco decorations in the Upper Church at Assisi: the Old Testament scenes starting with Isaac Blessing Jacob, the Vault decorated with the Doctors of the Church, the New Testament scenes including Christ among the Doctors and the Lamentation, and the St. Francis cycle. Despite the lack of knowledge surrounding Giotto's formative years, these frescoes can be considered the turning point of his early career. Not everyone agrees that they were conceived and executed by the artist who later painted the frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua. Indeed, some feel that the Assisi frescoes were merely influenced by Giotto's art, that they were painted after the Paduan frescoes, or that they are a product of the Roman school. These views were first advanced by art historians of undoubted competence and are still held by many. However, it is unlikely that the Assisi frescoes were painted after those at Padua. In spite of the impression of unity created by the Upper Church frescoes, those by Giotto are easily distinguished, not only for their style, but also because they display a completely new concept. That fresco technique had changed radically by the time Giotto began work on his frescoes, is evident from their state of preservation. The disastrous condition of Cimabue's frescoes (already noted by Vasari) is due to his faulty use of pigments and to the old practice of plastering as large an area as the scaffolding would permit. Giotto painted on several relatively small patches of plaster, as large as could be comfortably painted in a day. As the plaster was always wet, the pigment penetrated deeply and uniformly, ensuring the preservation of the colours. In this way only the final touches had to be painted on dry plaster, whereas the method used by Cimabue required that large areas be painted a secco, (i.e. when the plaster was dry). However, the technique was not the only novelty, since the very conception of the fresco had changed drastically. Cimabue and his contemporaries had regarded the wall as a surface to be covered with two-dimensional representations. The decorations around the margins of the pictures were conceived as flat ornamentation, similar to that of a tapestry or miniature, and included large plant motifs, ribbons and other ornamental elements painted in flat, bright colours. But Giotto's frescoes create the impression of being framed by the very architecture of the church, and the scenes are represented three-dimensionafly, as they would appear in the real world.