Lorenzo Lotto: Crucifixion

Today, we interrupt our posts on Edward Hutton's visit to Naples and the Campania to put up a post from his visit to Monte san Giusto and its famed painting of the Crucifixion by Lorenzo Lotto.  

"Beyond Pausula, by a rough and hilly road across the Cremone valley, we come to the little walled town of Monte San Giusto, and there in the church of S. Maria is a Crucifixion by Lotto, painted in 1531." (227)

He did not describe the painting and I wonder if he actually saw this magnificent work of the Venetian master. The small church of S. Maria in Telusiano is hard to find and the painting would have been difficult to see before the invention of coin-operated lighting. A few years ago my wife and I visited Monte San Giusto to see the painting. Here is my account.

Italian Renaissance master Lorenzo Lotto was born in Venice around 1480 but spent most of his long career working in provincial towns. Perhaps this is why he is not as well known as Giorgione and Titian, both of whom were born outside of Venice but did most of their work in the great city

Lotto’s most powerful and dramatic work was a Crucifixion that still stands in its original site in the little church of Santa Maria in Telusiano in the small, out of the way, hill town of Monte San Giusto, located in that part of Italy known as the Marche. The town is not too far from Loreto, the religious center where Lotto eventually spent the last years of his life.

Lotto’s Crucifixion shows that he could hold his own with the greatest of Renaissance masters. My wife and I saw the painting a few years ago as we traveled down the Adriatic coast. Our old guidebook called Lotto’s painting in Monte San Giusto “ the most dramatic and powerful of all his large-scale works,” and so we decided to take a side trip out of our way in hope of finding it.  Although we are very thankful for the wonderful works of art preserved in Italian museums, it is always special to see a work “in situ”, where it was originally meant to be seen.

It was not easy to find the church and we finally had to go into a local bank where a patron kindly offered to lead us there through the curvy narrow streets of the town. We parked outside a long stone staircase that went up and up between stone buildings packed closely together on each side. 

It was hard to immediately recognize the church but we finally found a door that led into what was no more than a large chapel. It was dark inside and the church was empty except for a couple of ladies who seemed to be cleaning. We could hardly see the painting behind the only altar but one of the ladies pointed to a little box. We put a coin in and immediately the huge magnificent painting (450x250cm) that took up almost the whole back wall was revealed.

Revealed is an understatement. The light, color, movement, physicality, and dramatic intensity virtually jumped out at us. A crowd of guards and onlookers stand beneath and around the three crosses that reach high into a dark sky. Jesus is in the middle flanked by the two thieves.

Standing in Santa Maria it is hard to examine the huge painting closely because the impression is so overwhelming. But on reflection we can see that Lotto has depicted the moment right after the death of Jesus. We can see the Roman centurion Longinus on his white horse immediately after he has placed the point of his lance in the side of Jesus to verify his death. He has released the lance and it is about to fall. He reaches both hands toward Jesus in the act of shouting, “truly, this man was the Son of God.”

The death of Jesus is also marked by a great wind that causes the loin cloths of Jesus and the thieves to billow as well as the Roman banner on the right where one can just make our the first letters of the name of Caesar Augustus. In the foreground, the disciple John, robed in green, seems to lead the grieving Mother right out of the picture. Behind them red-haired Mary Magdalene dressed in blue stretches out her arms in grief.

Today, it is hard to imagine what churchgoers back in an obscure provincial town must have thought when they beheld this magnificent painting. They could never have seen anything like it before and must have known that a great master had done it. Going to Mass in Santa Maria in Telusiano would never be the same. At the Consecration of the Mass, as the priest at the altar raised high the host, their eyes would behold the sacrificial victim raised high on Calvary in the dramatic and breathtaking altarpiece behind. 

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Note: A friend sent me a fine Youtube video with excellent commentary.

Tolentino and St. Nicholas

Before the unification of Italy, Romagna and the Marches had been part of the Papal States for about a thousand years. Hutton viewed unification as a conquest of the South by the northern Kingdom of Piedmont, a conquest in which he believed more was lost than gained by cities like Tolentino.

St. Nicholas Basilica, Tolentino

The truth would seem to be that the cities under the Papal dominion enjoyed a far greater measure of real freedom than those subject to a mere Signore, and that the difference between being actually independent and being subject to the Pope was a negligible one. Says an historian of Tolentino: “The Accoramboni were never lords in Tolentino. It is false to assert it. We were always free under the Church. The people of Tolentino would never endure tyranny. The men of Camerino—yes; but we were made of different stuff.” And this feeling, which we may be sure was based on substantial fact, was really universal throughout the Romagna and the Marches. When the Piedmontese came in, in 1860, “the people of Ravenna,” we read, “were forced to the polling booth at the point of the bayonet.” And this new liberty was recommended to those who enjoyed the reality for ages! (229)

[The most famous citizen of Tolentino was St. Nicholas (1245-1305), an Augustinian monk] 

Tolentino, it may be thought, as the birthplace of a great saint, may have been more Papal than her neighbors, but in fact this is not so. The great figure of S. Nicholas is not in any sense of the word political; its appeal is altogether human and universal…. 

Perugino: S. Nicholas

It might seem that in S. Nicholas of Tolentino we have an example of that rare sweetness of character which is perhaps in greater or lesser degree the portion of all the saints, but which in him was so overwhelming that men and women followed him, flocked to his Masses, or sought him in the confessional for no other reason. As a preacher, no doubt, he was amazingly successful, but rather by reason of some inward sweetness and charm than of the victorious eloquence of his mere words. For thirty years he lived in Tolentino in the Augustinian convent there, a star in the March, something which men could not explain or dismiss from their minds, women knelt to kiss his robe, and even those in the flower of their age gladly heard his voice, as though it had been some sweet far-away music. By the very beauty of his nature he drew thousands from the half-brutal worldliness in which they lived, and seems indeed to have brought to them something of the strange incomprehensible beauty of his own vision. (229-230)

[On the way to Tolentino Hutton passed through tiny Monte San Giusto and mentioned a painting by Lorenzo Lotto.]

Beyond Pausula, by a rough and hilly road across the Cremone valley, we come to the little walled town of Monte San Giusto, and there in the church of S. Maria is a Crucifixion by Lotto, painted in 1531. (227)

I wonder if he actually saw this magnificent painting by the Venetian master. The small church of S. Maria in Telusiano is hard to find and the painting would have been difficult to see before the invention of coin-operated lighting. A few years ago my wife and I visited Monte San Giusto to see the painting. Here is a link to my account.

Lorenzo Lotto: Crucifixion detail

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Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.

Edward Hutton: Tolentino

Before the unification of Italy, Romagna and the Marches had been part of the Papal States for about a thousand years. Hutton viewed unification as a conquest of the South by the northern Kingdom of Piedmont, a conquest in which he believed more was lost than gained by cities like Tolentino.

St. Nicholas Basilica, Tolentino

The truth would seem to be that the cities under the Papal dominion enjoyed a far greater measure of real freedom than those subject to a mere Signore, and that the difference between being actually independent and being subject to the Pope was a negligible one. Says an historian of Tolentino: “The Accoramboni were never lords in Tolentino. It is false to assert it. We were always free under the Church. The people of Tolentino would never endure tyranny. The men of Camerino—yes; but we were made of different stuff.” And this feeling, which we may be sure was based on substantial fact, was really universal throughout the Romagna and the Marches. When the Piedmontese came in, in 1860, “the people of Ravenna,” we read, “were forced to the polling booth at the point of the bayonet.” And this new liberty was recommended to those who enjoyed the reality for ages! (229)

The most famous citizen of Tolentino was St. Nicholas (1245-1305), an Augustinian monk. 

Tolentino, it may be thought, as the birthplace of a great saint, may have been more Papal than her neighbors, but in fact this is not so. The great figure of S. Nicholas is not in any sense of the word political; its appeal is altogether human and universal…. 

Perugino: S. Nicholas

It might seem that in S. Nicholas of Tolentino we have an example of that rare sweetness of character which is perhaps in greater or lesser degree the portion of all the saints, but which in him was so overwhelming that men and women followed him, flocked to his Masses, or sought him in the confessional for no other reason. As a preacher, no doubt, he was amazingly successful, but rather by reason of some inward sweetness and charm than of the victorious eloquence of his mere words. For thirty years he lived in Tolentino in the Augustinian convent there, a star in the March, something which men could not explain or dismiss from their minds, women knelt to kiss his robe, and even those in the flower of their age gladly heard his voice, as though it had been some sweet far-away music. By the very beauty of his nature he drew thousands from the half-brutal worldliness in which they lived, and seems indeed to have brought to them something of the strange incomprehensible beauty of his own vision. (229-230)

On the way to Tolentino Hutton passed through tiny Monte San Giusto and mentioned a painting by Lorenzo Lotto.

 

Beyond Pausula, by a rough and hilly road across the Cremone valley, we come to the little walled town of Monte San Giusto, and there in the church of S. Maria is a Crucifixion by Lotto, painted in 1531. (227)

I wonder if he actually saw this magnificent painting by the Venetian master. The small church of S. Maria in Telusiano is hard to find and the painting would have been difficult to see before the invention of coin-operated lighting. A few years ago my wife and I visited Monte San Giusto to see the painting. Here is a link to my account.

Lorenzo Lotto: Crucifixion detail

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Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.