I was 19 when I first visited Montemigiano and my dad was getting married to his third wife. The whole combined family - all 21 of us - stayed in three houses in mid-August during an intense heat wave. Still, my initial impression was that Montemigiano was the most beautiful place in the world, and I’ve yet to be proven wrong. The first time I saw the ancient fresco on the wall in the house upstairs I had an Indiana Jones moment, “That belongs in a museum!” But when I realized it’s too fragile to move wouldn’t survive the journey, I understood what a treasure it is to Montemigiano, and it belongs here.
Vitelli room fireplace mantle, Campanille circa 1425
The House of Vitelli was a prominent noble family of Umbria, and rulers of nearby Città di Castello. Around 1420, a bishop from the Vitelli Family was exiled to Montemigiano for political reasons. He tried to make the best of the situation and endeavored to make his dwelling more habitable by commissioning a large gray sandstone fireplace with the Vitelli coat of arms.
Bishop Vitelli also commissioned a remarkable fresco from an unknown artist in the Umbrian-Sienese school. Later, the fresco was covered by a thick layer of lime and was completely forgotten behind the wall. It resurfaced by chance from centuries-old darkness during the renovation work on the Parish complex, behind a rather unremarkable fresco. (1)
Vitelli Fresco in Casa Campanille, Borgo di Montemigiano, circa 1425 C.E. (click to enlarge)
Why would a fresco of such great beauty be covered and lost to history for hundreds of years?
Let's consider the subject: The fresco depicts the Virgin Mary sitting on a throne with Baby Jesus in her lap. By her side are Saint Hilary of Tours and Saint Nicholas, patron saints of Montemigiano parish. To her immediate left is likely Pope Martin V, the reining pope from 1417-1431.
On the viewer's left, there is Saint Sebastian, mostly nude with just some old school tidy-whities, tied to a tree, pierced with several arrows, and bleeding profusely. He's the main subject of the fresco, even though the Virgin Mary is on the throne.
Saint Sebastian is a popular male saint, especially today among athletes. In historical times he was regarded as a saint with a special ability to intercede to protect from plague, and devotion to him increased greatly when plague was active.
Saint Sebastian, by Perugino, Lourve, Paris, circa 1495
Saint Sebastian, 1500–02, Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano. Oil on wood, 45 7/8 x 18 1/2 in. Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Photo: M. Bertola
The martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is one of the most enduring themes in Western religion. Sebastian lived during the rein of the Emperor Diocletian (284 - 305 C.E.). He is often depicted nude and transfixed with arrows, but this is not an execution scene.
Saint Sebastian (died 288 C.E.) was an early Christian martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians, initially being tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows, though this did not kill him.
He was, according to tradition, rescued and healed by Saint Irene of Rome. In all versions of the story, shortly after his recovery he went to Diocletian to warn him about his sins, and as a result was clubbed to death. He is highly venerated in the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church and was a popular subject of iconography in Italian churches from the 14th to 17th century.
Thomas Kren, the lead curator for Getty Museum exhibition in 2019 The Renaissance Nude wrote, "Ever since the Renaissance of the 1400s and 1500s, the unclothed human form has been one of the defining features of art in Europe. Yet artists’ and viewers’ attitudes toward the nude were as varied and complex centuries ago as they are today."
Saint Sebastian, By Antonello da Messina, 1477–1479, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany.
The rise of the nude in art in the Renaissance was driven by a revival of interest in Greek and Roman art, which is centered on the body, and by a rise in the closer study of nature. In Italy during the later 1400s, drawing of undressed models became common practice for artists. Within a few decades, this new practice spread to northern Europe as well. In fact, the dominant role of observing and sketching from the nude in an artist’s training has lasted into our own era.
But the use of the nude in art, particularly religious art, was controversial during the Renaissance. Images of beautiful bodies can be highly sensual, which made some observers uncomfortable—then as much as now.
The classical revival resulted in new types of Christian imagery, such as in the depictions of Christ and Christian martyr-saints as partially or fully undressed heroes.
Some argued that endowing Christ and the saints with athletic, finely proportioned bodies helped communicate the virtue of these figures. Others were scandalized.
Saint Sebastian, for example, was a popular Renaissance subject for altar pieces in churches because his protection was invoked against the plague, a recurrent danger that resulted in countless deaths. Since nudity was a feature of Sebastian’s persecution (he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows), and since intellectuals compared him to the Greek god Apollo, many artists depicted him as a handsome and alluring young man.
Take a look at those dreamy eyes!
Vitelli Fresco in Casa Campanille, Borgo di Montegiano, circa 1425 C.E.
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, about 1450–52, Donatello. Bronze base in marble, 10 1/4 × 9 7/16 × 3 1/2 in. Institut de France, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, MJAP-S 764. Image © Studio Sébert Photographes
The depiction of St. Sebastian by Moderno shows him wearing only a pair of sandals, alongside an image of the Virgin and Child and other clothed Christian saints. This degree of nudity, baring even Sebastian’s genitals, may appear strange to us today; even then it was rare in depictions of Sebastian, and took some explaining to justify. Renaissance humanists defended it by equating bodily perfection with heroism and virtue. In their view, the martyr’s flawless beauty, made fully visible by his total nudity, literally embodies his courage.
Nudity in art was at its most controversial when displayed in public. In the early 1500s, Bartolommeo, a Dominican friar/artist, scandalized a Florentine congregation by painting an altarpiece of a beautiful nude Saint Sebastian wearing only a transparent veil over his genitals. Women found it so alluring, it was said, that the priests deemed it safer for parishioners’ souls to remove it from the church. (2)
The shifting views about nudity in the 17th Century covered up countless religious relics, most of which are lost to history. Saint Sebastian was just too sexy.
Sources:
1. If the Stones Alone Are Left to Speak, Angelo Angeletti, Editrice, 2019
2. Thomas Kren, Getty Museum, Deconstructing Myths about the Nude in Renaissance Art, 2019