The Roman School at Assisi

1 The present article was originally intended as one chapter of a book, which was to emphasize and expose in detail the aesthetic transitions of Italian painting from Cimabue through Giotto. Whether or not the original plan will be carried out is uncertain, but a separate book on Cimabue has been written and will shortly appear. Thus the conclusions reached in this article are by no means confined to the works here considered. My gratitude goes to the Berensons for their hospitality and the use of their excellent library, and to Dr. Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., under whose supervision I was first initiated into most of the following problems. The heretofore unpublished photographs were taken by Brogi of Florence.

Abstract

The stories from the Old and New Testaments in the nave of the Upper Church of S. Francesco in Assisi contrast strongly with the visionary ruins in the choir and transepts. They are less hieratically Byzantine in spirit, and more conventionally Italo-Byzantine in iconography. Although the influence of Cimabue may be seen in many of them, we find for the most part a repetition of themes that had become standardized in and about Rome during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.² The climactic years, however, of what is usually called the Roman School are confined to the last two decades of the dugento—a period which may roughly be measured from the mitigation of hostilities between Church and Empire to the exile of the popes in Avignon. These were years of great activity in church decoration, and Rome was a natural center and clearing house for all manner of artisanship. Being also heavily loaded with the works of profane and Early Christian antiquity, this city, like a monumental academy, ripened with knowledge the art of those who could retain their integrity, and reduced others to a more or less skillful imitation and eclecticism.