Art and the Augustinian Order in Early Renaissance Italy by Anne Dunlop Louise Bourdua

Author:Anne Dunlop, Louise Bourdua [Anne Dunlop, Louise Bourdua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780754656555
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2007-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

It was precisely this passage which Jacques Fournier cited to resolve the Beatific Vision controversy, which had arisen in 1332, with his treatise De statu animarum of 1334. The originator of the controversy was Pope John XXII who had begun to doubt that the soul would experience the visio Dei immediately after death. He argued publicly, risking charges of heresy, that the vision of God could only occur after the Last Judgement.43 A compromise was reached with Fournier’s treatise which defended the orthodox position of immediate vision but granted the pope the possibility of a still more perfect vision after the General Resurrection at the end of time.44 Pope John retracted his statements shortly before his death and the issue was finalized in 1336 when Fournier, who succeeded John as Benedict XII, published Benedictus Deus which defined, however cautiously, the doctrines at the heart of the controversy.45 In this context it may not be unreasonable to speculate that the image in the Eremitani apse of the Resurrected Christ leading the blessed in the Last Judgement scene (fig 26) perhaps stood in place of the usual episode of the General Resurrection, which was not represented in this fresco, in order to represent the visio Dei experienced by the blessed immediately after death (or in ecstasy). It would follow, then, that the image of Christ in Glory in the vault represented the perfect vision experienced after the General Resurrection and Last Judgement at the end of time.46 Interpreted in this way, the Last Judgement scene in the Eremitani apse can be seen to support the official papal doctrine on the Beatific Vision which was itself based on the authority of Augustine.

The use of Augustine to resolve a serious theological crisis within the Church must have presented the Augustinians with an opportune moment to assert their claim to being the true descendants of the Church Doctor. It is not difficult to imagine that the event inspired the Augustinians, even if the frescoes were created some years after the fact, to draw on the writings of their ‘founder’ for the iconographic programme. The irregular configuration of the Eremitani apse programme, and indeed the configuration of the entire choir programme, can be explained by reference to Augustine’s writings, not only in iconographic details but particularly in his concepts of time and vision. Christian Trottmann notes that it is with Augustine that beatitude is thought of as a vision, and that the ‘face to face’ encounter with God promised by Scripture is likewise interpreted in terms of vision.47 According to Augustine, the soul rises through a hierarchy of three categories of vision towards beatitude: 1) corporeal vision is man’s ability to see with his eyes that which is around him; 2) spiritual vision is the ability to see ‘in spirit’ or to imagine things which are absent; and 3) intellectual vision is the ultimate perfect vision in which one can perceive that which cannot be seen, like love, charity, peace, and finally God himself.48 Augustine’s concept

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