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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Luca Signorelli's frescoes portraying the last days and the end of the world which decorate the Cappella di San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral are often described as reflecting Dante's Commedia or as having a Dantesque quality. Commissioned in 1500 to complete the decoration of the cathedral begun by Fra Angelico half a century before, Signorelli painted — along with such scenes traditionally associated with the Last Judgment as the Resurrection of the Dead, the Damned in Hell, and the Saved in Paradise — two frescoes which portray the deeds of Antichrist and the signs of the end. Together with his illustrations from Dante's Purgatorio, also at Orvieto, these frescoes depict the key events of Christian eschatology. The entire cycle reflects, in other words, the artist's awareness of eschatology as encompassing not only the fortune of the soul after death, but also the events which occur in the last days of the earth's history, a view of eschatology which is both personal and cosmic. It is certainly appropriate to see Dante's influence upon the artist's representation of such scenes as the ‘anti-Inferno’ and the suffering of the damned in hell. Although the subject matter need not have been drawn exclusively from Dante, a knowledge of the Commedia helps one to understand these frescoes better. Both Dante and Signorelli reflect a concern with the last events which is typical of their times, and along with other artists and poets, they share a common background in Christian eschatology. In some respects, therefore, their individual achievements are analogous, so that an understanding of the frescoes can also help us to understand the Commedia, even though the painter worked a century and a half after the poet. Particularly, Signorelli's ‘Fatti dell’ Anticristo,’ a portrayal both of the traditional Christian beliefs concerning the great deceiver of the last days and of late medieval apocalypticism, provides insights into Dante's description of the contemporary church in Inferno 19 (Fig. 1). The artist and the poet each draw upon long-established Christian iconography and symbolism to infuse their work with an apocalyptic expectancy which, by placing contemporary scenes in a cosmic perspective, underscores its religious significance and ultimate consequence.
1 E.g., Carli, E., Il Duomo di Orvieto (Rome 1965) 106–111; idem, Luca Signorelli: Gli freschi nel Duomo di Orvieto (Bergamo 1946); Dussler, L., Signorelli des Meisters Gemälde (Stuttgart 1927) xxxii–xxxvii; Scarpellini, P., Luca Signorelli (Collana d'Arte 10; Florence 1964) 40–45.Google Scholar
2 The portraits are identified by, among others, Salmi, M., Luca Signorelli (Novara 1953) 24–25.Google Scholar
3 For the medieval understanding of Antichrist, see Emmerson, R. K., Antichrist in the Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Apocalypticism, Art, and Literature (Seattle 1980); Bousset, W., The Antichrist Legend, tr. Keane, A. H. (London 1896); and Rauh, H. D., Das Bild des Antichrist im Mittelalter: Von Tyconius zum deutschen Symbolismus (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters n.f. 9; Münster 1973). The continuity of the medieval tradition in the Renaissance is evident in the encyclopedic work of Malvenda, T., De Antichristo (Rome 1604; Lyon 1647). Documents concerning Antichrist have been collected in Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (Columbia Records of Civilization 96; New York 1979).Google Scholar
4 Typical of the traditional interpretation of the two witnesses are Tertullian, De anima 50 (PL 2.780); Gregory, Moralia in Iob 15.58.69 (PL 75.1117); Glossa ordinaria (Venice 1588) VI fol. 256r–256v. For the later identification of the witnesses with Francis and Dominic, see Ubertino da Casale, Arbor vite crucifixe Jesu 5.8 (Venice 1485) fol. 229r. The Spiritual Franciscans particularly claimed to fulfill the role of the two witnesses, whom they identified with the spiritual men prophesied by Joachim of Fiore. See Reeves, Marjorie, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford 1969) 148, 176, 180–181, 198–199.Google Scholar
5 E.g., Bernardino of Siena, ‘De mercationibus et vitiis mercatorum’ 33.2.7, ed. Sèjinski, A. in Opera omnia IV (Florence 1956) 151.Google Scholar
6 Quoted by Green, L., Chronicle Into History: An Essay on the Interpretation of History in Florentine Fourteenth-Century Chronicles (Cambridge 1972) 38. Green notes (p. 146) that the late-fifteenth century witnessed a great revival of ‘apocalyptic prediction.’ For the effect of such attitudes on art, see Meiss, M., Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton 1951; rpt. 1978) 78.Google Scholar
7 See Gaster, M., ‘The Letter of Toledo,’ Folk-Lore 13 (1902) 126–129.Google Scholar
8 Chastel, A., ‘L’Antechrist à la Renaissance,’ in L'Umanesimo e li demoniaco, Atti del II Congresso Internazionale di Studi Umanistici, ed. Castelli, E. (Rome 1952) 177–186. Reeves also describes the general anxiety of the 1480s and 1490s in The Influence of Prophecy 430–440.Google Scholar
9 Chastel, ‘L'Apocalypse en 1500: La fresque de l'Antéchrist à la Chapelle Saint-Brice d'Orvieto,’ Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance 14 (1952) 124–40.Google Scholar
10 During the fifteenth century, several block-books were printed which traced the vita of Antichrist from his birth to his death. These usually also included the Fifteen Signs of Doomsday and the Last Judgment. See Der Enndkrist der Stadt-Bibliothek zu Frankfurt am Main, ed. Kelchner, E. (Frankfurt 1891); Das Buch von dem Entkrist, ed. Pfister, K. (1925); Der Antichrist und die fünfzehn Zeichen, ed. Musper, H. Th. (Munich 1970).Google Scholar
11 Antichrist is shown as devil-inspired throughout the Velislav Bible's vita of Antichrist. See Stejskal, K., Velislai Biblia picta (Editio Cimelia Bohemica 12; Prague 1970) fols. 130v–135v. See also the block-book vitae cited in n. 10 above.Google Scholar
12 For Adso's Libellus de Antichristo, one of the most influential works of the medieval Antichrist tradition, see Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen, ed. Sackur, E. (Halle 1898) 104–113; and Adso Dervensis: De ortu et tempore Antichristi, ed. Verhelst, D. (CCL cont. med. 45). For Adso's significance, see Emmerson, R. K., ‘Antichrist as Anti-Saint: The Significance of Abbot Adso's Libellus de Antichristo,’ American Benedictine Review 30 (1979) 175–190. In addition to the illustrations described from the Morgan Library Apocalypse, Antichrist's methods of gaining power are also illustrated in the Velislav Bible, the block-book vitae, and the Hortus deliciarum (fol. 241v). For facsimiles, see nn. 10 and 11 above and Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus deliciarum, edd. Straub, A. and Keller, G. (Société pour la conservation des monuments historiques d'Alsace; Strasbourg 1879–1899).Google Scholar
13 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologica 1.114.4; Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla, printed with Glossa ordinaria VI fol. 114v.Google Scholar
14 On Antichrist's death, see Jerome, , In Esaiam 8.25.6–8 (ed. Adriaen, M., CCL 73.327); Bede, ‘De temporibus Antichristi,’ De temporum ratione (PL 90.574); Adso, Libellus de Antichristo (112–113 Sackur); Glossa ordinaria VI fol. 270v; Legenda aurea, ed. Graesse, Th. (1890; rpt. Osnabrück 1969) 642.Google Scholar
15 Schedel, H., Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg 1493) fol. 262v. Concerning the chronicle's possible influence on Signorelli, see Scarpellini, Luca Signorelli 133.Google Scholar
16 The Apocalypse of London, MS Wellcome Historical Medical Library 49 fol. 13r, for example, pictures Antichrist's fall from the hands of devils. Attempting to rise from the Mount of Olives, he has been struck down by an angel, who watches from above. The block-book vitae similarly emphasize the final events of Antichrist's life by showing, in full-page pictures rather than the more usual half-page illustrations, Antichrist's rise into the heavens and fall after being struck down by an angel.Google Scholar
17 See Bisogni, F., ‘Problemi iconografici Riminesi: Le storie dell’ Anticristo in S. Maria in Porto Fuori,’ Paragone 305 (July 1975) 13–23.Google Scholar
18 E.g., MSS Morgan m 524 fols. 19r, 20r; Paris B.N. fr. 403 fols. 39v and 40r; London, Brit. Lib., Harley 1527 fol. 148r.Google Scholar
19 For the Simon Magus legend, see Actus Petri cum Simone, edd. Lipsius, R. A. and Bonnet, M., Acta apostolorum apocrypha post Constantinum (Leipzig 1891) I 45–103; Bousset, Antichrist Legend 147–150.Google Scholar
20 The cycle includes the calling of Peter, his coronation, his cursing of Simon Magus, his trial, and his upside-down crucifixion. See Rode, Herbert, Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien des Kölner Domes (Corpus vitrearum Medii Aevi, Deutschland IV 1; Berlin 1974) plate 223, and for detail plate 225. For other illustrations, see Male, E., The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, tr. Nussey, D. (Icon edition; New York 1972) 296–298; and Bucher, F., The Pamplona Bibles (New Haven 1970) fol. 206r.Google Scholar
21 Singleton, , ‘Inferno XIX: O Simon Mago!’ Modern Language Notes 80 (1965) 92–99. Singleton includes two illustrations from twelfth-century cathedral sculpture of Simon's fall.Google Scholar
22 Pseudo-Clementine Homily 2.17–22, ed. Rehm, B. (GCS 4140–43); Gregory, Moralia 29.7.15 (PL 76.484); Berengaudus, Expositio super septem visiones libri Apocalypsis (PL 17.970–971); Bruno of Asti, Commentaria in Matthaeum 4.99 (PL 165.269–270); and Glossa ordinaria VI fol. 115r.Google Scholar
23 Collationes in Hexaemeron 15.8, ed. Parma, A., Opera omnia V (Quarrachi 1896) 399. Bonaventure's identification of Antichrist and Simon Magus is of particular importance as a possible source for Dante's association of Simon Magus and Antichrist, argued below.Google Scholar
24 See n. 58 and discussion below.Google Scholar
25 Typical of many Anglo-Norman apocalypses, the gloss for Apoc. 8.1 in MS B.N. fr. 403 fol. 11v states: ‘La scillence que est fete en ciel ausi come demi hure signefie la pes que seinte Glise avera apres la destruction Antecrist, apres qui vendra tost le jugement.’ For this theme of the ‘silence as it were of half an hour,’ see Lerner, Robert E., ‘Refreshment of the Saints: The Time After Antichrist as a Station for Earthly Progress in Medieval Thought,’ Traditio 32 (1976) 97–144.Google Scholar
26 Most modern scholars believe that the description in 2 Thess. 2.3–10, an important source for the medieval Antichrist tradition, refers to Nero. Certainly in much early Christian literature Nero is portrayed as Antichrist. See Emmerson, , Antichrist in the Middle Ages , chap. 1. For the Gulbenkian Apocalypse (MS Lisbon, Gulbenkian L.A. 139) on Apoc. 13, fol. 39v; on Apoc. 8, fol. 16r.Google Scholar
27 Herzman, R. B. and Stephany, W. A., ‘“O miseri seguaci”: Sacramental Inversion in Inferno XIX,’ Dante Studies 96 (1978) 39–65.Google Scholar
28 Ibid. 44, 63 n. 8.Google Scholar
29 All references to Dante are from La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, ed. Petrocchi, G. (Società Dantesca Italians, Edizione Nazionale; Milan 1966–1967).Google Scholar
30 Actus Petri cum Simone 32 (Lipsius & Bonnet I 83).Google Scholar
31 See n. 20 above.Google Scholar
32 Herzman and Stephany, ‘“O miseri seguaci”’ 63–64.Google Scholar
33 Ibid. 54.Google Scholar
34 Friedman, J. B., ‘Antichrist and the Iconography of Dante's Geryon,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 35 (1971) 120; see also 118–119. For the association of Enoch and Elias with the friars, see n. 4. above.Google Scholar
35 Herzman and Stephany, ‘“O miseri seguaci”’ 47.Google Scholar
36 Davis, C. T., Dante and the Idea of Rome (Oxford 1957) 197. In a useful appendix, 239–243, Davis discusses the perceived affinities between Dante and Joachimist writers. Some exegetes also identified the whore with Antichrist. The French gloss accompanying many of the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypses, for example, states: ‘La femme qui seeit sur la beste rouge signefie Antecrist & les siens qui meinent deliciose vie en ce munde’; Delisle, L. & Meyer, P., L'Apocalypse en français au XIII e siècle II (Paris 1901) 89. The first volume of Delisle and Meyer (1900) contains a facsimile of B.N. fr. 403.Google Scholar
37 Kaske, R. E., ‘Dante's “DXV” and “Veltro,”’ Traditio 17 (1961) 202–203.Google Scholar
38 Davis, chap. 3, ‘Dante and the Papal City,’ 195–235, gives extensive documentation of Dante's knowledge of these writers. See also Kaske's richly documented article, and Friedman, ‘Antichrist’ 108–122, esp. 113, 118.Google Scholar
39 For these writers and their relationship to Spiritual Franciscanism, see Fleming, J. V., An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages (Chicago 1977) 98–104.Google Scholar
40 On the question of Peter of John Olivi's influence on Dante, for example, Davis writes: ‘Like the Spiritual Franciscans of his day, and in particular the famous teacher Pier Giovanni Olivi, who lectured at Santa Croce between 1287 and 1289, he lamented the perversion of the Roman destiny revealed in the corruption of the Church, even more deeply than in the weakness of the Empire.’ He then goes on to compare the language of Olivi's commentary on Apoc. 17 with the apocalyptic language of Inferno 19. Davis, Dante 30, 226; and Friedman, ‘Antichrist’ 118.Google Scholar
41 Reeves, , Influence of Prophecy 191–194, 395–415.Google Scholar
42 Reeves, , ibid. 193. For Angelo Clareno, see Fleming, Franciscan Literature 101.Google Scholar
43 Grundmann, H. made this connection in ‘Dante und Joachim von Fiore zu Paradiso X–XI,’ Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch 14 n.s.v. (1932) 252. For analysis of these prophecies, see also Grundmann, , ‘Die Papstprophetien des Mittelalters,’ Archiv für Kultursgeschichte 19 (1929) 77–159. Friedman, , ‘Antichrist’ 115, suggests that these same prophecies may have influenced the iconography of the beast Geryon of Inferno 16 by their portrayal of Antichrist.Google Scholar
44 … ma non fia da Casal né d'Acquasparta,Google Scholar
la onde vegnon tali alla scrittura,
ch'uno la fugge, e altro la coarta. (Par. 12.124–126)
45 Davis, Dante 226.Google Scholar
46 The connection is made by Davis, , ibid. 217, and Friedman, , ‘Antichrist’ 113. See also Erich Auerbach's seminal analysis, ‘St. Francis of Assisi in Dante's Commedia,’ Italica 22 (1945) 166–179. Fleming, Franciscan Literature 230, describing Ubertino's influence on Dante, says that ‘The poet paid homage to the friar in deeds if not words, however, for he borrowed from him details of his own Franciscan poetic myth.’Google Scholar
47 For an extended analysis of the use of the language of matrimony in Inf. 19, its connection with sacramental inversion as part of the canto's contrapasso, and its figural relevance to Par. 11, see Herzman and Stephany, ‘“O miseri seguaci”’ 55–59.Google Scholar
48 Ubertino, Arbor vite, 5.12 (fol. 240r–240v); see also 5.8 (fols. 228v–233v). Foster, K., ‘The Canto of the Damned Popes: Inferno XIX,’ Dante Studies 87 (1969) 57, states that ‘unlike Ubertino, Dante never identifies Boniface with Antichrist.’ This is surely true. But our point is not that Boniface and the other popes are Antichrist (nor are they Simon). The point is that Boniface and the others are types of Antichrist, forerunners or predecessors of Antichrist in the last days, and represent the working of Antichrist in the Church, just as they are the ‘seguaci’ of Simon Magus.Google Scholar
49 Reeves, Influence of Prophecy 196.Google Scholar
50 Not surprisingly, the opposition between Rome and Babylon and the influence of this opposition on the Commedia is emphasized by Davis, Dante, esp. chap. 3, ‘Dante and the Papal City.’ See also Kantorowicz, E.’ review of Davis in Speculum 34 (1959) 103–109.Google Scholar
51 Comentum super Dantis Aldigherij Comœdiam, ed. Lacaita, G. F. (Florence 1887) II 54.Google Scholar
52 S. Hieronymi presbyteri Commentariorum in Danielem libri IV, 11.21 (ed. Glorie, F.; CCL 75A.915). A text of equal importance immediately precedes it: ‘cumque multa, quae postea lecturi et exposituri sumus, super Antiochi persona conueniant, typum eum uolunt fuisse Antichristi, et quae in illo ex parte praecesserint, in Antichristo ex toto esse complenda …’ (ibid.). See also Rabanus Maurus, Commentaria in libros Maccabaeorum (PL 109.1134). For Antiochus Epiphanes as the most widely discussed type of Antichrist in the Middle Ages, see Emmerson, , Antichrist in the Middle Ages , chap. 1.Google Scholar
53 Musa, M. has made the valuable point that the initial apostrophe (‘O Simon Mago!’) is that of Dante the poet, and the final apostrophe (‘Ahi Costantin’) that of the pilgrim, thus showing how the pilgrim's insights in the canto grow to equal those of the poet. See Advent at the Gates (Bloomington 1974) 52–61. Herzman and Stephany have pointed out that Bernard of Clairvaux's De consideratione contains a passage which opposes Peter to Constantine. Charging the papacy with temporal excesses, Bernard says : ‘In his successisti, non Petro, sed Constantino’ (4.3.6), edd. Leclercq, J. and Rochais, H. M., S. Bernardi Opera III (Rome 1963) 453. Given the all-pervasive opposition between Simon Magus and Simon Peter in the canto, Bernard's statement supports Musa's emphasis on the importance of these two apostrophes to the canto's structure. See Herzman, and Stephany, , ‘“O miseri seguaci”’ 64 n. 28.Google Scholar
54 Expositiones et glose super Comediam Dantis, ed. Cioffari, V. (Albany 1974) 368.Google Scholar
55 Heretical writers from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, identifying Antichrist with the papacy, attacked the Donation as the origin of Antichrist's power. See, for example, on the Catharist heretics, Wakefield, W. L. and Evans, A. P., Heresies of the High Middle Ages (Columbia Records of Civilization 81; New York 1969) 173. Such an interpretation would later be very influential among Reformation writers. See Emmerson, , Antichrist in the Middle Ages, conclusion. But as Davis, Dante 85 has shown, disapproval of the Donation was widespread in Dante's time, and it is therefore not necessary to turn to ‘the works of heretics and extremists’ for possible sources.Google Scholar
56 Herzman and Stephany, ‘“O miseri seguaci”’ 40–41.Google Scholar
57 Ibid. 41. Similarly, the speech of Nicholas in the beginning of the canto is balanced by the rebuke of Dante at the end: Nicholas is no prophet, but Dante is, or at least he becomes one at this point in the Commedia. Not only does he cry out, as do the Old Testament prophets, against the terrible evils of the present, but he does so using that apocalyptic language which links present and future in prophetic fashion (as the conclusion of this essay brings out in more detail).Google Scholar
58 See Haimo of Auxerre, Expositio in Apocalypsin (PL 117.1100); Hugh of Strassburg, Compendium theologicae veritatis 7.9, ed. Borgnet, S. A., B. Alberti Magni … opera omnia XXXIV (Paris 1896) 242. Martin of Leon comments: ‘Ita ut etiam ignem de coelo descendere faciat, id est spiritum malignum quasi spiritum sanctum descendere in terrain’ (Expositio libri Apocalypsis, PL 209.370). The relationship between the fire of Apoc. 13.13 and Pentecost is particularly illustrated in the moralized Bible of MS Brit. Lib. Harley 1527 fol. 136v. One miniature illustrates the literal text by showing fire falling from a mask in heaven onto a group worshipping the beast, whereas an accompanying miniature pictures a traditional Pentecost in contrast to Antichrist's pseudo-Pentecost.Google Scholar
59 Velislav Bible fol. 133v. The rubric is based upon Hugh of Strassburg's explanation in the Compendium. For a facsimile, see n. 11 above.Google Scholar
60 The Coming of Antichrist, lines 193–204 (edd. Lumiansky, R. M. and Mills, D., EETSn.s. 3.416).Google Scholar
61 Kaske, , ‘Dante's “DXV”’ 202.Google Scholar
62 For a discussion of apocalyptic dimensions of the end of Purgatorio, see Kaske, R. E., ‘Dante's Purgatorio XXXII and XXXIII: A Survey of Christian History,’ University of Toronto Quarterly 63 (1974) 193–214.Google Scholar
63 Herzman and Stephany, ‘“O miseri seguaci”’ 62.Google Scholar
64 Ibid. 61.Google Scholar
65 This project was undertaken when the authors were Fellows-in-Residence at The University of Chicago during the academic year 1978–1979, on a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. We are grateful for the opportunity which made such close collaboration possible.Google Scholar
