Padova 21 September 2011

Capella Scrovegni

Giotto's jewel box is a small chapel (by Duomo/Basilica standards) that may have seated as many as 60 people in its heydey in the early 1500s. Papa Scrovegni was a notoriously successful loan shark, and, upon his death the jealous church fathers (the spiritual forebearers of the thugs that don't allow pictures in churches) decreed that he could not be buried in hallowed ground for his sin of usury. (In 1500, that's what Jews were kept around for. Hypocrisy is an ancient art.)

Having more than enough money, Scrovegni filio decided to secure his own post-mortem whereabouts by building a little chapel, and having the currently popular painter do the interior. Art historians are quick to explain that Giotto, whose previous work was mostly for clerics in churches, enjoyed the opportunity to break out. Instead of a committee, all he had to do was please his patron. Scrovegni junior was rich enough not to care much for political niceties, and gave Giotto his head.

Here we have a news photo of Scrovegni presenting the chapel to the heavenly gatekeepers in return for his inclusion among the blessed. Also among the blessed are San Francesco and San Antonio, two favorite players on Padova's saintly team, and (in a back row between Dante and the sculptor who did the chapel's 3D work) Giotto himself. God can be seen above the chapel, tapping his foot.

Scrovegni's crypt is above the altar, so his primary purpose in building the chapel was realized. He also built a sizeable palace beside the chapel, but it was demolished in the 1800s. Its careless demolition and the loss of the arcade over the door of the chapel compromised the water-tightness of the chapel, and the frescoes sustained much damage. During the next decades, the chapel was mostly ignored, and the destitute lived in it, scratching graffiti into the frescoes. 

Padova's city fathers came to their senses at the beginning of the 20th Century, bought the chapel, and started preservation work. Nowadays, to enter you first make a reservation, often days in advance in July and August, then present yourself at the time of admission, sit in a room for 15 minutes while you are dehumidified and regaled with a story about the chapel, and then, finally, allowed into the chapel with as many as 29 other people for a generous 15 minutes. Or, if you come at 19:00, 20 minutes.

To call Giotto's frescoes "luminous" is to give them too little credit. They do seem to glow with fresh life, as if the plaster were still wet in places. Beyond representation, the artist successfully innovated in many ways: his intuitive mastery of perspective is years ahead of his peers; his ability to capture motion is unparalleled; the richness of the environment, which blends legendary with the Padova of his era, is extraordinary.

The story told in the chapel starts with Mary's father Joachim, who was expelled from the temple for the sin of being without wife and child. Here, we see his marriage to Anne, which allows the miraculous story to begin.

These stories were painted at a time when most such stories were presented in an oral tradition, because most people couldn't read and books were rare. This tradition of using church walls as sort of illustrated novels had been going on for centuries, and so making them fresh and current was important.

Another news photo, this time showing Herod ordering the slaughter of the newborn. Here is an instance of Giotto's "sculpting with color:" the mothers whose children have already been taken have tears on the faces – on their faces.

This tiny little image does not allow you to see what you can see in the chapel, and even then you cannot get as close as restorers and documentors have, and since one isn't allowed to take pictures, all of these images are by others. For more, just Google "Scrovegni chapel" and stand back.

There is so much here, and fifteen minutes is such a short time! Fortunately, the Civic Museum provides a brilliant multimedia room where you can prepare yourself. We spent almost two hours there with charming Elisabetta, who called to our attention dozens of little details that we might easily have missed had we not been prepared. 

What an amazing time this must have been to work! Breakthroughs coming left and right, north and south. Europe for the first time really united as a working culture, thanks mostly to the buttheads who are running the church. (No, I won't give them the big C.)

Another example of buttheadedness. Several for-profit companies have treaties with the Padovan Civic Museum, and that's why you and I can't take pictures. Works completed 500 years ago are copyrighted! Now how much sense does that make? Come and get me, buttheads!

 One last little example of buttheadedness on the church's part. Scrovegni's and Giotto's work was so successful, and the former not yet being dead, plans were laid to extend the chapel to give the artist a little more room to run. The local churchmen objected, saying it was ostentatious. Like they would know? (See the gilding, for example, in San Antonio's Basilica.)

So Giotto, who had already painted a number of trompe l'oeil faux marble panels in the chapel, added two "windows" through to the non-existent antechamber.

Twenty minutes was scarcely enough, but it was dinner time, and anyway, they were throwing us out. We caught the tram to the Prato to a lively place for pizza and a scrumptious salad, our day's work well done.