A Final Visit to Carafa.

It is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas.  We are in Rome and visiting Santa Maria sopra Minerva.  We kneel at the balustrade of the Carafa Chapel to honor the saint to whom this magnificent, meditative prayer niche is dedicated.  As our gaze is drawn up above the altar and Eucharist, beneath a monumental arch, we see the conclusion of Filippino Lippi's thematic renderings:  The Annunciation and The Assumption.

These two frescoes relate to the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologica  whose prologues tells us, "Forasmuch as our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to save His people from their sins, ...showed unto us in His own Person the way of truth, whereby we may attain to the bliss of eternal life by rising again..."   In her book, Filippino Lippi's Carafa Chapel:  Renaissance Art in Rome, Gail L. Geiger reminds us that "while many scholars view the Renaissance age in Rome as a period of crisis and tension between the values of the classical past and the Christian present, it should be remembered that many late fifteenth-century people believed deeply in the regenerative force of Christian humanism for the church and it's reform."

The biblical story of the Annunciation tells the mystery of the Incarnation with it's theme of Redemption.

The Archangel Gabriel arrives before the Virgin.  His robe twists around him as if we've caught the moment of his arrival.  He carries lillies.  Light beams pierce the dark background as the Holy Spirit hovers above. The Virgin has been interrupted from reading.  She turns towards Cardinal Carafa who is kneeling in the foreground.  He gazes at the Archangel Gabriel while Saint Thomas Aquinas comforts him with his left hand. The Virgin is seen in her role as "man's mediator for divine grace" and as the "instrument of the Incarnation (Santa Maria, ora pro nobis).  (Geiger)

Filippino Lippi's father, the famous painter Fra Filippo Lippi, painted The Annunciation in 1466 for Jacopo Bellucci.  Like his father, Filippino places the Virgin in the middle between the Archangel Gabriel and the patron.  Cardinal Carafa, however, is not segregated from the Virgin by a ballustrade.  There is more intimacy between the the religious figures and the patron.  This is somewhat unusual for Quattrocento paintings however this may show the influence the powerful Cardinal Carafa had in depicting himself as important.  The everyday objects depicted above the Virgin show her human activities and may allude to the late Quattrocento artists interests in Netherlandish still life.

As we look above The Annunciation we see Filippino Lippi's The Assumption.

Flanked by saints, Filippino Lippi depicts the Virgin in a central and frontal manner as she is pushed up by angels and surrounded by a mandorla of cherubims.  It is thought that Filippino was inspired by Sandro Botticelli's Punishment of Korah (1480) which we studied earlier in the semester.

The energetic, flowing figures in the foreground and the landscaped background set the scene in both paintings.  Filippino Lippi's The Assumption has a series of angels playing musical instruments.  The angels surround the Virgin with bursts of energy.  Their instruments are typical of those used in military bands at the time.  This alludes to Cardinal Carafa's successful naval campaigns that brought him such immense notoriety.

 In Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa theologica, he states that in  the Rite of the Eucharist "the wine of the chalice signifies Christ's risen body, namely Christ Himself, and the Blessed Virgin, and the other saints...who are already in glory with their bodies."  This makes the Virgin's assumption an integral part of the theological theme of the chapel.

We see the Virgin is centered in the curve of the monumental, triumphal arch.  She is beneath the Cumaean Sibyl who sits over the keystone of the arch.  The apostles are below watching the glorious event.  The Virgin appears to be praying as three angels push her up to heaven.  She is glancing down toward Cardinal Carafa depicted in The Annunciation below.  There is billowing motion to the drapery and fluid motion of the figures.  The putti-filled cloud is very theatrical, a concept known to Filippino.  Visari, our seventeenth-century art critic, remarked, "Filippino had no equal in the talent and imagination he displayed in decorations for public festivals and masks."  (Geiger)

There are cherubs who peer from beneath the Virgin's cloak.  A series of stars form the Virgin's halo.  We have two groups of apostles awed by the events above.  The scene recedes towards a rolling landscape.

In the Carafa Chapel at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Filippino Lippi beautifully lays out the thematic devotion to the Virgin of the Annunciation and to Saint Thomas Aquinas.  There is a visual and conceptual unity that provided a meditative environment for the Dominicans in Quattrocento Rome who prayed there.