In Orvieto, from Beato Angelico Majesty to Luca Signorelli Humor

Before leaving Orvieto, the Dominican friar maestro had spent only about three months in the  Cathedral of Orvieto, frescoing sections of le vele (spandrels) on the ceiling of the Cappella Nuova (“New Chapel”) – as it was then known.

In the corresponding vela on the other side of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, hands folded in prayer, is backdropped by the twelve Apostles,  one reading and the others meditating or praying.  The design,  created  by Fra Angelico in 1447, was finally frescoed by Signorelli half a century later:

Signorelli also frescoed the other two sections of the same vault quadrant with depictions of the Doctors of the Church ….

..and the Patriarchs:

Do note the stylistic differences between the frescoes of Beato Angelico and those of Luca Signorelli.  For the Dominican friar, Beato Angelico, his art was above all an offering to the Lord, his ideal observer of his  work, done with painstaking care. Signorelli was focussed on his human spectator who would observe his art from a distance and although working with care, his work was hastier.

After Beato Angelico had abandoned Orvieto for other other commissions, attempts were made to employ other painters, among them Perugino, Renaissance master working in Perugia.  His monetary request was too high – and finally in 1499, the work was contracted with Luca Signorelli chosen thanks to his fame for expert yet swift work – and for his reasonable fee.

Starting the work on the vaults in springtime, 1499, he completed the work a year later when also consigning his drawings for the splendid frescoes destined for chapel walls.

Astoundingly, in only three years –  1499 to 1502 –  the fresco decoration was  executed, with a rapidity quite unique in the history of Italian art.

Although the basic fresco themes would have been decided by the  Cathedral’s administrators, clergy and and consulted theologians,  Signorelli’s sharp imagination and quirky humor comes through in the seven large scenes on the side walls:

Vasari affirms that Signorelli’s works “were highly praised by Michelangelo” who even lent the elderly painter from Cortona a sizeable sum of money.

Tormenting devils, preachers advised by Satan, muscular young resurrected bodies in monumental compositions full of overlapping and interlinking figures all underscored that interior discomfort and spiritual crisis of the 15th century: a profound influence on the artists of the following century such as Michelangelo.

He especially admired the elderly Signorelli’s extraordinary capacity to depict nude bodies, portrayed in every imaginable position in the Orvieto frescoes. Nude bodies are flung from the sky in stupendous backward foreshortening in the fresco of the Dannati all’Inferno (“The Damned to Hell”)….

…..and tortured and terrified by groping devils: