The Golden Legend and the Renaissance: Shaping the Visual Language of Saints.
Did you ever consider how comes that most Christians can recognize some of the most influential saints of our tradition by looking at simple artworks? This is because by the late 12th and 13th centuries, Italian art was transitioning between a Gothic art that still spoke with a Byzantine language and was exploring in realism, detail, perspective. Some would define this period as the proto-Renaissance, beginning with Cimabue, Cavallini, Giotto and culminating with Lorenzo Monaco and Gentile da Fabriano. It is during this period, while Italian churches are being decorated with frescoes and altarpieces by these great masters, that those recognizable iconographies of the saints emerge as we now know them and at the basis of this is an extremely influential text to Christian iconography.
Adoration of the Magi, Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, Tempera on Panel, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
In the late 13th century, Dominican friar Jacopo da Voragine writes the Legenda Aurea a hagiographical collection of the lives of the saints which provided the framework for the visual culture of Europe for the years to come. It narrates the lives of the most influential saints going through accounts of martyrdom, miracle, conversion, offering symbols, attributes, which would make it easier for the reader, and when easily translated into art, viewers, to recognize those subjects.
Coronation of the Virgin, Lorenzo Monaco,
1414, Tempera on Panel, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
By the 14th century, this work had essentially standardized Christian iconography, creating a shared iconography which would then shape Renaissance and Baroque art. Its strength can be found in its clarity, the life of each saint is organized through specific episodes, from acts of charity to divine intervention, and attributes would be associated with these moments, forming the visual language for a mostly illiterate society, this is the work that made art, visual preaching, incarnate theology. In this blog, I will try and condense the most essential and influential ones, those which are most recurring within Christian art.
The earliest stories in the Golden Legend belong to the apostolic age. For example, Mary Magdalene is seen as a repentant sinner who turned into a contemplative hermit. Her attributes are long air, an ointment jar. The martyrdoms of Saints Peter and Paul are essential in establishing a model of apostolic authority, Peter is often recognized via his inverted crucifixion or the attributes of the keys, while Paul through the sword and book. Saint Clement, one of the earliest popes, was martyred by being cast into the sea with an anchor, and so the anchor often appears as an attribute.
Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Paul, Antoniazzo Romano,
1476, Tempera on Panel, Church of San Pietro, Fondi.
Later, are the early martyrs and virgin saints of the early Church, the persecutions of the 3rd century allow for extremely powerful material. Saint Cecilia was believed to have sung to God before her execution, she is often depicting playing musical instruments, while Saint Sebastian was pierced with arrows, in the Renaissance his martyrdom would be framed within glorious classical architecture.
Saint Sebastian, Perugino, c.1495, Oil on Panel, Louvre Museum, Paris.
Saint Lawrence, the third patron of Rome, was martyred on a gridiron, he is depicted wearing a dalmatic, hinting at his role as a deacon. The win physicians Saints Cosmas and Damian are often associated with the episode of the transplantation of a leg from a deceased man to a living one.
Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, Fra Angelico, 1447-49,
Niccoline Chapel, Vatican City, Rome.
Saint Bartholomew was flayed alive, he is often depicted as holding a knife and his own skin. Saint Nicholas was thought to be a miracle-working bishop, his acts of charity are represented by three gold balls or resurrected children, symbols of generosity. Saint Margaret of Antioch escaped from a dragon, echoing the narrative of Saint George, whose dragon-slaying symbolizes the triumph of faith over evil. Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who defeated pagan philosophers and survived martyrdom on a wheel, became a symbol of intellectual authority.
Saint George and the Dragon, Paolo Uccello,
c.1456, Oil on Canvas, National Gallery, London.
We then encounter the time of imperial Christianity, Saint Helena is a turning point, she represents the triumph of Christianity within the Roman Empire, in her case the Golden Legend recounts her discovery of the True Cross, linking these important relics to imperial authority, she is often so-depicted. In late-Antiquity.
The Finding of the True Cross, Antoniazzo Romano,
c.1490, Fresco, Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome.
Saint Jerome, translator of the Vulgata Bible withdrew into the desert as a hermit, becoming a model of intellectual and spiritual life. He is often depicted with a lion, after an episode in which he famously removes a thorn from a lion’s paw, he often has the attribute of a stone and a cardinal hat, in the Renaissance he would also be represented as a scholar in his study. Saint Martin of Tours embodies charity through his act of diving his cloak. We finally get to the later Medieval period with Saint Francis and his new form of sanctity based on his personal devotion, shown through the reception of the stigmata, an act of divine revelation.
Saint Jerome in his study, Domenico Ghirlandaio,
1480, Fresco, Church of Ognissanti, Florence.
The Legenda Aurea is not a simple collection of stories but an important system that shaped how the lives of the men and women that inspire our faith are visualized. Through these clear narratives and their attributes, the great masters could depict images that were not just beautiful but also meaningful and recognizable, from the early martyrdoms to the later contemplative saints, influencing late Medieval and Renaissance art.
Death of Saint Francis, Domenico Ghirlandaio,
c.1485, Fresco, Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinita, Florence.
The Golden Legend laid the foundations for a common language that allowed the lives of the saints to be easily represented and understood, it is a theological work which became more essential to art history itself than to the study of theology perhaps, much like the Council of Florence became more of an iconographical subject than a doctrinal turning point. So, next time you look at Renaissance depictions of saints, remember about the Golden Legend, if you want to read the full story.
