10 Churches & Cathedrals in Province of Bergamo That You Shouldn't Miss

The frescoes by Lorenzo Lotto in the Suardi Oratory “A small chapel dedicated to the glory of St Barbara And St Bridget”. Thus is definded, in a sixteenthcentury survey, the building where L. Lotto realized the cycle of frescoes, which, both for its dimensions and complexity of the themes, is generally considered the most demanding work of his artistic career. The first frescoes, dated 1502, were made in the apse by a still unknown artist, whom recent criticism believes of the circle of Jacopino de Scipioni. In 1524, in answer to a request from Battista Suardi, L. Lotto frescoed the two main walls, the one at the end of the room and the ceiling. It was a period of profound political and religious crisis. The decaying reformers’ ideas aroused doubts and Feelings of anxiety. The central idea of the cycle is the possibility given to every man to share in the divine life. On the large wall opposite the front door, the huge figure of Christ opens his arms; from his fingers the tendrils of the vine grow and rise to circle and enframe ten Saints of the Church. The evangelical line “Ego sum vitis vos palmites”, written in gold above the haloed head of the saviour, sounds as an explicit invitation. At the centre of the lower register, Battista Suardi, half length, with his wife Orsola and his sister Paolina, his hand joined in prayer and his eyes gazing the sacred image, shows by his presence his assent to the theses of the complex doctrinal programme. In the background a city view opens the wall to space, and in the instructing episodes of the life of St Barbara are represented. As in a Miracle Play, the different places where the action takes places are set out as on a platform; the streets, squares and interiors of the imaginary town are accurately described and so are the emblatted walls with gaates opening on a landscape painted indelicated hues. The small space of the oratory is by a play of illusion enlarged as faraway mountains, the very bright horizon, ending in a tone of an intense sky-blue above. In continuos narrative, the episodes of the story follow each other inside the prospective spaces from left to right: the building of the tower in which Barbara’s father would have liked to shut his daughter, her conversion, her baptism in solitude, her outraging the pagan idol, speaking to her father, her words revealed in her simple and expressive gestures, her looking for shelter up the hills and, discovered, being dragged to town by her father, the different stages of her martyrdom, Christ appearing to heal her wounded body, an angel covering her naked body while the executioners are trailing her to the market place. The story narrated is simple, but it is enriched with realist details, and shows L. Lotto’s preference for situations taking place. On the hills drama comesto an end: against a bright sky in the background, Barbara dies, her head cut by her father who, in order to disclose his wickedness even to an unlettered audience, is dressed like a Turk. A sham architectural frame with a trabreation supported by Corinthian pilasters connects real and imaginary space and continues on the entrance wall. There the story of the nine miracles of St. Bridget, The Irish lady saint protectress against bad weather is presented. Flowers sprout out of the predella, made of Matteo Suardi, cousin of Battista, sharing with him commission of the decoration of the Chapel. There is nothing exceptional in the miracle is presented without solemnity, Through the simple gestures of the girl. Faith and good actions. This is the message presented in the stories of St. Barbara and St.Bridget. After pointing out the dangers that people who let themselves be seduced by attractive false doctrines may meet, the author leaves, fixing his eyes on Christ-vite on the opposite wall. In the cicle, the most different suggestions can be found. Very old iconographic motifs, as the one of Christ- vine, are given life and modernity, almost in anticipation of Counter- Reformation patterns.