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POPE NICHOLAS IV: FRANCISCAN INFLUENCE ON LATE THIRTEENTH-
CENTURY ART

BY

Kristin M. Casaletto

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ART

Department of Art

1992

ABSTRACT

POPE NICHOLAS IV: FRANCISCAN INFLUENCE ON LATE THIRTEENTH-
CENTURY ART

BY

Kristin M. Casaletto

Nicholas IV (1288-92) was the first Franciscan pontiff,
a pious figure. Yet he was well—traveled and educated, hence
able to establish a papal policy that undertook spiritual
goals (e.g., conversion, crusade) as well as pragmatic ones:
restoration of papal strength and of Rome as the Church’s
central authority.

As a Franciscan, Nicholas had great faith in Francis of
Assisi, viewing him as a savior of the Church and role model.
Hence Nicholas made Francis and.Franciscanism.the keys to both
facets of his policy and prominent elements in art
commissioned for the lateran, Liberian, and Assisian
basilicas, among other works. By choosing to patronize works
of art that lent themselves to Franciscan interpretation and
including Franciscan iconography in them that was sometimes a
complete departure from accepted types, he revealed his
interest in promoting his Order.

To utilize Franciscanism, Nicholas had to relax the
strict Franciscan stance on poverty which prohibited devel—
opment of a Franciscan iconography. He did this using poli-

tical means and by changing iconography in art he patronized.

Copyright by
Kristin M. Casaletto

1992

To Laura, who is back,
and to Joe,
who is far away

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Everyone should.know that the people of Ascoli Piceno are
more than kind, as is Robert, who carried all those books in
the heat and explained how the invention of pizza was but one
great moment in the proud Dutch heritage.

I want to thank Tony, whose flawless impersonation of a
rapper rescued my ailing computer. John P. Casaletto, too,
needs to be thanked for his services as creative consultant,
and.a heartfelt thanks for one other thing: those speed bumps
always kept me up worrying.

Thanks to M., who was always there, and a special thanks
to the big W.P., who saved me from becoming too pannosus,

asper, or despectus.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENT S

List of Figures ............................................ iv
Girolamo d’Ascoli ........................................... 1
The Papacy and Franciscanism ............................... 11
Franciscan Poverty ......................................... 25
St . John Lateran ........................................... 35
Santa Maria Maggiore ....................................... 51
Ascoli Piceno and the Cope ................................. 71
Assisi and the Chalice ..................................... 90
Conclusion ................................................ 104
Bibliography .............................................. 111

iii

LIST OF FIGURES

1 . Reliquary of Sant’Andrea ................................. 23
2. Apse mosaic of St. John Lateran .......................... 41
3. Apse mosaic of Santa Maria Maggiore ...................... 56
4. St. John Lateran: detail of St. Francis ................. 59
5. Santa Maria Maggiore: detail of St. Francis ............. 60
6. Papal statue attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio ............. 65

7. Santa Maria Maggiore apse: detail of Pope Nicholas IV. . .67

8a. The Ascoli Cope: left side ............................. 77
8b. The Ascoli Cope: right side ............................ 78
9. Ascoli Cope detail: Pantocrator ......................... 80
10. Ascoli Cope detail: Pope St. Fabianus .................. 83
11. Chalice of Nicholas IV .................................. 97
12. Chalice of Nicholas IV: detail of base ................ 100
13. Chalice of Nicholas IV: detail of Nicholas IV ......... 103

iv

Chapter One: Girolamo d’Ascoli

Saint Francis of Assisi was hairy and scrawny, worn and
ragged, and an extreme personality, and.yet he was spiritually
profound. His tattered appearance resulted, in large part,
from his commitment to Lady Poverty, of whom he spoke in the
terminology of courtly love and whom he named as his bride.
He was absolutely faithful to her, and his commitment to his
symbolic spouse ran deep. In her name, he became the poorest
of the poor. He allowed his simple clothing to become
threadbare. He gave away all his material possessions;
anything he held was kept only long enough to give away, and
he stored nothing to provide for the future. His poverty was
extreme, but to Francis, it was simply a result--and one he
accepted joyously--of his conviction to live in a manner
strictly in accordance with the councils of the Gospels. No
matter that he had nothing; faith in God was enough, and He

would provide.1

 

1 Biographical information about St. Francis of Assisi

used here comes in large part from Tommaso da Celano's Vita
Prima and Vita Seconda and from St. Bonaventura’s Legenda
Maior, all thirteenth-century works. They can be found in
Fonti Francescane, Biblioteca Francescana di Milano, 3rd. ed.
(Padua: Grafiche Messaggero di S. Antonio, 1977). More
recent biographies are innumerable. Some I have found useful
are Otto Karrer’s Saint Francis of Assisi: The Legends and
Lauds, trans. N. Wydenbruck (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1948)
and Paul Sabatier's Life of St. Ewancis of Assisi, trans.

1

2

Francis's unshakeable faith. and. his joy for living
attracted followers. He eventually established a new
religious order, based on an exhortation to live the Gospels
in unassuming and absolute faith. The Franciscan Order
blossomed. What began as eight men grew exponentially,
changing the lives of thousands and becoming one of the major
religious forces of the Middle Ages and beyond.2

Francis met his death at age forty-four, in 1226, with
his characteristic spiritual joy: he invited all the
creatures of the earth to praise God with him, and welcomed
even death, calling it "Death, my sister."3 When he was
canonized a saint only two years later, the groundbreaking was
already under way for his memorial church.

The members of the Friars Minor--or "lesser brethren, " as
they called themselves—~pursued his vision of a life fulfilled
by simple faith. They led an existence of total poverty and

deep humility, governed by strict observance of the Gospels.

 

Louise Seymour Houghton (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1930).

2 The Franciscans quickly recruited and maintained a
large membership; they were unusually active in ndssionary
activities in countries as far afield as China; and they
produced such noted members as the saints Anthony of Padua,
Clare, Bonaventura, and the blesseds, Corrado d’Ascoli and
Margherita Colonna. Their theology affected art and
architecture as well as popular philosophy even into the
twentieth century. Francis was named a patron saint of Italy
in 1939. On the eight hundredth anniversary of his birth,
five million visitors made the trip to Assisi. For the
history and achievements of the Order, see Raphael M. Huber,
A Documented History of the Franciscan Order (Milwaukee:
Nowiny Publishing Apostolate, Inc, 1944).

3 Tommaso da Celano, Vita Seconda, chap. 163, sect. 217.

3

Pope Nicholas IV, head of the Catholic Church from 1288
to 1292, was a member of the Friars Minor. It is hard to
imagine a follower of the humble St. Francis (who refused even
to build shelter for himself) being sufficiently worldly to
meet the complicated political and spiritual demands of the
great house of the Church. How was Nicholas, who modeled
himself after a saint who was too modest even to become a
priest, to rule as pope? How was this new pope who came from
the Order that stood for humility, meekness, and poverty to
run what had become the veritable business of the Church?

By the time Nicholas ascended to the papacy, Francis had
been gone for just over half a century, and the Franciscan way
of life was evolving rapidly. As the Order had grown, it had
also changed, and to understand why Nicholas’s behavior no
longer always closely resembled Francis’s, the Pope needs to
be examined in the context of the late thirteenth century.

Girolamo d'Ascoli (as Nicholas IV was called before he
became pope), like so many other people from the region of Le
Marche in that epoch, grew up under the inescapable influence
of Francis of Assisi. Francis had died in the Umbrian hills
about fifty miles distant just twelve months before Girolamo
was born on September 30, 1227.‘ Francis, immensely popular

in the area, had already been declared a saint by the time

 

‘ There is some dispute over this date. See Antonino

Franchi, Nicolaus Papa IV (Ascoli Piceno: Cassa di Risparmio
di Ascoli Piceno, 1990), p. 13. I consider' Franchi’s
biography of Nicholas the most reliable of the many I
consulted. The biographical information in this chapter (with
exceptions, which are cited) is derived from his work.

4
Girolamo had reached his first birthday.

Girolamo’s surname, d'Ascoli,5 refers to Ascoli Piceno,
the town in hilly central Italy nearest Lisciano, the paesino
of his birth. He spent his childhood in Ascoli and its
environs, raised by his humble parents. Local legend would
have it that the family was of noble rank, and this tale has
found its way into many of Nicholas's biographies, but
documents fail to bear out such a story.6 Noble or not, it
is certain that Girolamo was immersed in Francescanismo from
a very early age.

In 1215, St. Francis himself had come to Ascoli Piceno,
creating such. a fervent religious atmosphere ("il clero
gioiva, si suonavano 1e campane, gli uomini esultavano, si
congratulavano 1e donne, i fanciulli applaudivano,
e...canta[vano] dei salmi'”) that thirty young people had
begged to be permitted to take up his habit and follow in his

ways. He favored their request and presented them with the

 

5 His surname is often given as "Masci," but no reliable

documents support this. See Franchi, pp. 15-16.

‘ Franchi, p. 18. In the sixteenth century, a young
Masci with noble Ascolano roots was rising within the Catholic
hierarchy and wanted the surname placed on Pope Nicholas’s
tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore in order to enhance his own
importance. The bloodline between the two was
unsubstantiated, but many of Nicholas’s biographers now
proclaim his nobility, basing it on this false inscription
from the 15003. (Personal interview with Antonino Franchi;
see also Franchi, p. 17.)

7 Tommaso da Celano, Vita Prima, in Fonti Francescane,
chap. 22, sect. 62. Translation: the clergy rejoiced; the
city bells rang out; men exulted.him; women congratulated him;
youths applauded and...singing psalms, ran to meet him. (The
translation is mine.)

5

Franciscan habit, a rough, brown robe tied by a cord with
three knots representing the vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience. These thirty young Emanciscans founded Ascoli
Piceno's first small mendicant outposts. It was one of these
early little hermitages, probably Santa Maria Maddalena, that
was Girolamo's point of entry into the Franciscan Order.8

His next tappa on the road to ordination, as is revealed

9 was the Sacro Convento at Assisi. Here

by his later letters,
he was trained in the spirit of St. Francis and gained a great
love for his Order’s founding saint, for Assisi, and for its
churches.

Several biographers claim that Girolamo next went to the
university at Perugia and acquired his doctorate in
theology.10 This, however, presents a problem: the
University of Perugia was not formally founded until 1308,
fifteen years after Nicholas’s death, Yet the claim is not as
outrageous as it may first appear. By 1200, a number of

loosely organized schools had been established in Perugia

which were to become the core of the later university, and

 

8 Probably between 1245-1250. See Franchi, p.25.

9 One dated 24-25 February, 1288, and the other, 7
August, 1289. See Franchi, p. 28, note 12. Original letters
are at Assisi in the Biblioteca Comunale Archivio Sacro
Convento.

m To name a few: Gustavo Parisciani, Nicolo IV: Fra
Girolamo.Masci d’Ascoli Primo Papa.Francescano (Ancona; ZFrati
Conventuali delle Marche,l988); Joseph S. Brushers, Popes
through the Ages (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1959); J.M.
Mgldoon, "Nicholas IV, Pope," New Catholic.Encyclopedia, vol.

, p. 443.

6
"before 1300, there were several 'universitates
scholarum.'"11 Perhaps Girolamo completed some form of study
at one of these universitates.

That Girolamo was quite a learned man, however, is beyond
doubt. In addition to being a "philosopher and theologian, a
lover of teaching and of writing,"12 he also had an
impressive gift for languages: he spoke Latin, Greek, and
French.13

The years from 1255 to 1272 were most likely a time of
movement for him. It is probable that he spent time in Rome
and perhaps also Viterbo and Orvieto, near the papal curia.
He probably also lived for a period in some of the hermitages
in his home region, Le Marche, almost certainly at Fermo and
at San Francesco d’Ascoli.“

By 1272, he had distinguished himself within the Order
sufficiently to be entrusted with a mission to Dalmatia (a
region of western Yugoslavia on the.Adriatic). Here he was to
take up duties as the new provincial—minister of Slavonia, a
region of northern Yugoslavia in east Croatia.

While minister of Dalmatia, he was sent by Gregory X to

Constantinople to obtain, through the influence of Byzantine

 

“ C. F. Wemyss Brown, "University of Perugia," Catholic

.Encyclopedia, vol. 11, p.737. See also Hastings Rushdall, The
universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford, England:
Clarendon Press, 1895), vol. 1, pp. 40-43.

” Franchi, p. 35.
” Ibid., p. 37.

“ Ibid., p. 33.

7
Emperor Michael Paleologus, the union of the Greek and Latin
Churches. He worked at this task with no little success,
impressing his superiors within the hierarchy of the Church.
His reputation was strong and growing. While he was
conducting his business in Constantinople, the General Chapter
of the Franciscans was being conducted at Lyon. There, in his
absence, Girolamo was unanimously elected to the position of
minister general of the Franciscan Order, succeeding St.
Bonaventuraa He successfully completed his duties in the East
and arrived in Lyon on July 4, 1275, in time for the closing
of the General Chapter and to assist in the ceremony of the
union of the two Churches. It was a triumphant moment, both
for Girolamo and for the mended Church.

He had.no time to rest on his laurels, however. He spent
the next five years as an exceptionally active minister
general. Indeed, within two years of his election, he found
that he was called so often to act as legate of the Apostolic
See that it became impossible for him to perform his duties
effectively. Not wanting to neglect his obligations to the
Franciscans, he tendered his resignation of the minister
generalship. The friars not only refused to accept it, but
reelected him.15

Thus practically forced to retain the position of
minister general, he was sent in 1278 to act as papal legate

on a ndssion to France to help restore peace between that

 

” Huber, p. 168.

8

country and Castile. While he was at work there, he received
word of yet another duty: Nicholas III had made him a
cardinal and assigned him to the church of Santa Pudenziana in
Rome. Finally the Friars Minor saw that they must relinquish
their minister general to Rome, and in 1279, he was at last
permitted to give up the Franciscans’ head position in order
to move to Rome and take up his duties as cardinal. His work
for the Franciscans, however, was far from ended. He never
forgot them, and, interestingly, one of his first duties as
cardinal was to assist the pope in preparing a bull, Exiit Qui
Seminat, clarifying the Franciscan Rule and, in particular,
expounding on the delicate issue of poverty. The Exiit had
important implications for the Franciscan community; a
discussion of it will follow.

Girolamo worked closely with Nicholas III, but the Pope’s
death was near at hand, and, by 1281, his successor, Martin
IV, gave him yet another new title: cardinal—bishop of
Praeneste. Despite his attraction to the contemplative life,
Girolamo’s abilities had consistently prompted his superiors
to place him in active positions of leadership.

The call came yet again on February 15, 1288. Pope
Honorius IV had been dead for nearly a year, and the election
of a successor had dragged on for months. Discord prevailed
amongst the cardinals, and disease during that steamy summer

also took a major toll. "Death so thinned the ranks of the

9

cardinals that their number was reduced to nine."16 Six
cardinals died.during the intense summer heat, and.most of the
others fell sick, so the conclave, realizing no headway was
being made and that the health threats were all too real,
suspended its meetings. Only Girolamo stayed on in Rome, and
when the cardinals reassembled in February of 1288, he was
elected unanimously. Girolamo protested, saying acceptance of
the post was against all his wishes. Although he had always
"been kept in the midst of the whirl of business,"17 his only
desire was to lead a retired life of contemplation. He would
rather be his brethren's cook, he declared, than a
cardinal,18 and. now’ he was loathe to be elevated to a
position of even more responsibility. The cardinals, however,
would have none of it, and the following Sunday, they
unanimously voted again for him. This time he acquiesced.
Perhaps election to the papacy did cause the pious
Girolamo the mental disturbance he claimed. Or perhaps his
reluctance was the first known instance of many that was to

reveal his effort to emulate St. Francis, either in true piety

or with the desire to enhance his own stature within the Order

 

” Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Middle
Ages (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd.,
1931), p. 5; Franchi, p. 91. For more on this subject, see
Angelo Celli, "La Malaria nella Storia Medievale di Roma" in
Archivio della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria 47 (1924),
p. 36; and by the same author, The History of.Malaria in the
Roman Campagna from Ancient Times (New York: AMS Press,
1977).

17

Mann, p. 11.

” Ibid., p. 10.

10
and the Church--because Francis, too, was known to have felt
himself drawn to a strictly contemplative life,19 though he
had been continually called to action because he knew himself
to be the "herald of the great King."2° But whatever the
case, Nicholas was as ambitious in tackling problems as pOpe
as he had been as minister general and papal legate. His
piety was not to hinder his ability to come to terms with the

power and potential of the papacy.

 

” A. McDevitt, "Franciscan Spirituality," New Catholic
Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), vol. 6, p. 37.

” Celano, Vita Prima, chap. 7, sect. 16.

Chapter Two: The Papacy and Franciscanism

Girolamo's record of ecclesiastical assignments would seem to
speak for itself, but how did the elevation to the papacy
affect him? Historians have been less than kind in assessing
his papal prowess. There seem to be two general schools of
thought. Horace K. Mann, one of Nicholas’s biographers,
represents the more common line:
Timid in tackling the affairs of life that
came before him, of narrow outlook and slow in the
transaction of business, Nicholas lacked the
qualities that make a successful ruler of men. He
was...a pious monk, without thought of self;
concerned only for the peace of the world, for a
Crusade, and for the extirpation of heresy.21
Mann believed that Nicholas even aggravated problems during
his reign "by his ignorance of the most elementary ideas of
government. It is possible that he even failed to realize
that a civil ruler must have material force behind him."22
Nicholas, according to Mann, had no aptitude for leadership.

Otto Schiff, another of Nicholas's biographers, seems to

share this opinion, describing Nicholas as a weak man.23

This attitude of dismissal permeates much of the literature.

 

“ Mann, p. 10.

” Ibid., p. 180.

” T.F. Tout, "Studien zur Geschichte Papst Nikolaus IV"

(review), English Historical Review, 14 (1899), p. 764.

11

12

The Cambridge Medieval History sums up the attitude well in
its description of him: "Nicholas IV was among the least
distinguished popes." This is no small discredit when one
considers that the popes number two hundred and sixty-three.
Why such a negative evaluation of Pope Nicholas? It is not
irrelevant to note that Nicholas was a Franciscan, of the
Order known for meekness of temperament and an eagerness to
bOW'tO higher authorityu Nicholas himself had tried to refuse
Peter’s chair, as had Celestine V. Celestine, a Franciscan
friar and Nicholas’s immediate successor, could not bear the
pressure of the Church's highest office and abdicated in 1294,
after only five months as pope, in order to return to his life
as a hermit.24

But Nicholas was not so timid, and the harsh judgments of
such as Schiff and Mann hardly seem fair. Indeed, some of the
more recent scholars have given the underrated Pope Nicholas
a second look. What James Ryan has discovered suggests
anything but ineptness. Nicholas appears quite capable: he
"directly intervened in affairs...making suggestions and
settling disputes.““ Daniel Waley, too, lauds Nicholas as
one of the few popes of his era who, rather than falling into
a drifting indecisiveness, constructed a definite policy and

put it into operation. He states that Nicholas had "a

 

“ Mann, pp. 313-320 passim.

. '25 James Daniel Ryan, "Nicholas IV and the Eastern
M1331onary Effort," Archivum.Historiae Pontificiae 19 (1981),
p. 84.

13

particular interest in the government of the State, to whose
problems he dedicated himself with an energy and originality
to which justice has never been done."26

Furthermore, I would contend that, deceptive as his truly
pious demeanor may have been (or may continue to be), Nicholas
gained in strength and skill from the experience of his many
Church-assigned, often politically delicate missions. Indeed,
he became a capable politician and.diplomat, able to set goals
and determine means by which to achieve them. Being a
Franciscan was not the hindrance to his politics that it would
prove to be for the reticent Celestine V. Had it been,
Nicholas would not have risen so quickly through the most
significant posts of his Order and onward to the Chair of
Peter, the most powerful position in the Catholic Church and,
at that time, one of the most powerful positions in the world.

Nicholas fully recognized the seriousness (to say nothing
of the unique possibilities) of his new position. He was also
cognizant of the powerful opportunity for his Order that lay
in being the first Franciscan ever to reign as pope. With the
backing of the Holy See, the message of St. Francis could be
proclaimed as never before. Was Nicholas, as Schiff and Mann
would imply, too inept to be aware of his newfound prestige?
Too bumbling' to take advantage of such, an opportunity?
Hardly. Far from demure, Nicholas immediately began to

demonstrate his worldly competence.

 

2‘ Daniel Waley, The Papal State in the Thirteenth

Century (London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd., 1961), p. 212.

14

He consolidated power by recovering Church property.27
He earned money by selling cities the right to elect their own
magistrates.28 He even increased funds available for his
strategically chosen art programs. He found various methods
to accomplish this last; for instance, in lieu of a wealthy
but aged businessman's promised pilgrimage to Rome, Nicholas
demanded that a monetary amount equivalent to the expense of
the trip be put toward refurbishment of St. Peter’s, assuring
the man that the positive effect on his soul would be the
same.‘29 In.another instance, Nicholas proved to be capable
of concocting profitable punishments: a banking establishment
that had profited through usury was required to pay one
thousand ounces of gold in reparation. The money went, not to
the used lenders, but to the papal treasury.30

Early in his tenure, Nicholas established a papal agenda.
As a Franciscan, he realized that the ideals of his Order lent
themselves well to the support of the papacy. One of these
ideals was Christocentrism, or the belief that man's destiny
found its fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus
Jesus' teachings and acts were paramount to the Franciscans,
who emphasized Christ’s humanity as well as His godliness.

Christocentrism made Franciscanism appealing to Nicholas in

 

Mann, p. 188.
” Ibid., p. 189.
” Ibid., p. 206.

3° Ernest Langlois, ed., Les Registres de Nicolas IV

(Paris: Thorin & Fils, 1893), no. 6926.

15
his role as pope because a god who himself understood the
trials of man was appealing both to the faithful and to
potential converts.

As a result of the Franciscan veneration for Christ, the
Blessed Virgin was also especially revered within the Order
because she was the woman who brought the Christ Child into
the world. Marian devotion was another appealing Franciscan
tendency to Nicholas as pope because Mary was seen as a
welcoming figure, and her popularity was increasing
dramatically in his era. Nicholas shared in the Franciscan
veneration of the Virgin, as he later demonstrated by
refurbishing the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and
manipulating the iconographical content of its mosaics in a
manner designed to do the Lady honor.

A second important tenet of Franciscanism. was
ecclesiality. The Lesser Brethren believed that Christ was
present in all creatures and thus that all were part of a
greater brotherhood or fraternita that was, in fact, the
Church.31 The Franciscans thus had a great sense of loyalty
to the Church as well as a desire to serve it and the pope who
was at its head.

Nicholas needed to reinforce the Church and to restore
the prestige of the papacy, and promoting the Franciscan
beliefs was a useful means to that end. His goals were thus

very much aligned with the ideals for which St. Francis had

 

“ McDevitt, p. 38.

16

striven sixty-odd years before: missions to spread the faith,
peace making, and elimination of heresy. In keeping with
these stated goals (at least to Nicholas’s way of thinking) he
made strong attempts at promoting crusades and unifying the
Eastern and Western Churches. (As a cardinal, his success in
mending the East-West schisnlhad.proven.to be only temporary.)

He realized, too, that he needed to promote a
consolidation and reaffirmation of Rome as an authoritative
seat of the Church and as a central power. Rome was a most
important center politically, economically, culturally, and
spiritually. In fact, as Robert Brentano has observed, "one
of the most important ideas about Rome in the thirteenth
century was that Rome stood for government."32 A strong
capital city was essential as an indicator of a strong and
competent papacy. Yet Rome, and particularly papal Rome, had
become weak“ In the civic sector, diverse factions constantly
squabbled for power (and Nicholas himself was a Roman senator
for life).33 But problems did not confine themselves to
politics alone. The city suffered; it was plague-diminished,
earthquake rocked, scandal shaken, and infected with
heresyfi34 There were infidels to the east and discontented
"faithful" in all other directions (including Rome) who were

arguably just as dangerous as the infidels. Papal patronage

 

32 Robert Brentano, Rome before.Avignon (New York: Basic
Books, Inc., 1974), p. 80.

33

Waley, The Papal State..., p. 214.

“ Ibid., pp. 176-208, passim.

17

of art (often an indicator of strength) hadmmeanwhile declined
since the time of Martin IV (1281-1285).35 Martin himself
had never even entered the city, ruling from Viterbo and thus
further diminishing faith in Rome's role as a central
authority. Doubts, aberrations, and outright heresies had
developed. "What was most urgently needed at that time
was...to wipe out the doctrinal deviations, rectify the faith
of the believing masses."36

Nicholas, who had already and often dealt in world church
politics, was painfully aware of the situation. In a manner
that was absolutely’ Franciscan, he immediately' dedicated
himself to the restoration of Rome’s strength by employing
Franciscan theology. In fact, Nicholas saw St. Francis as a
key part of his program to restabilize the central authority
of the Roman Church.

Nicholas had. good reason to rely on St. Francis's
doctrine. Nicholas knew that one of the Franciscan Order’s
main tasks was to function as an auxiliary and support for the

primacy of the Roman Church.37 This being an essential

 

35 Julian Gardner, "Patterns of Papal Patronage Circa

1260-1300," in Religious Roles of the Papacy: Ideals and
Realities 1150-1300, ed. Christian Ryan (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies, 1989), p. 449.

3‘ George Duby, Age of Cathedrals: Art and Society,
trans. Eleanor Levieux and Barbara Thompson (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 144.

37 Maria Consiglia de Matteis, "Girolamo d’Ascoli:
Dall’Esperienza Francescana alla Politica Ecclesiastica," in
Niccolo IV: Un Pontificato tra Oriente ed Occidente, ed.
Enrico Menesto (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto
Medioevo, 1991), p. 99.

18
objective of his apostolate, it is quite understandable that
"the empowerment of the Order and the accomplishment of that
social role that is so exquisitely Franciscan, functioning for
the centrality of Rome” was to be used to his advantage.38

Franciscans, beginning with Francis himself, had fostered
an attitude of utmost respect for and obedience to the
pontiff. Recognizing himself to be humble and simple, Francis
placed complete faith in the pope. He worked closely with.his
contemporary, Innocent III (1198-1216), traveling all the way
to Rome to seek approval of the Rule he wrote for his
Order.39 Tommaso da Celano, Francis’s contemporary and
friend, wrote a biography within two years of the saint's
death. The work reflects Francis's attitude toward the Pope,
referring to him as "covered in glory," "rich in eloquence,"
a man capable of "mature reflection" on the difficult matters
of the Church.‘40 Francis felt that the popes, by the very
nature of their position, were men close to God and could be
relied on for wisdom and good judgment.

The alliance between Franciscans and Church was made
clear when Francis declared his firm devotion in his Regula
Primitiva. It commenced with a promise of obedience to the
pope and all his successors and went on to say that "all

brothers shall be Catholic and live and speak as Catholics.

 

” Ibid., p. 100.

” Celano, Vita Prima, chap. l3, sect. 32-33.

“ Ibid., sect. 33.

19

If any shall [stray] from the Catholic faith and life either
by word or deed and shall not mend his way, let him be
expelled from the brotherhood.“1 As a man seeking to
increase the stability of and respect for the Holy See,
Nicholas astutely saw that the example of St. Francis was to
be upheld, even showcased for the benefit of the Church's
stability.

Nicholas was drawing'on more than just Francis’s personal
example of commitment to the pope. The nature of the saint’s
teachings also advocated many of the same attitudes extolled
by the Church, notably penitence, obedience, and humility.
The Franciscan Rule also, at the same time, disparaged
education and booklearning. .All of these factors favored, in
turn, the creation of a dependent faithful, meek in demeanor,
in need of and.willing to accept the central authority of Rome
as ultimate mentor.

Nicholas thus regarded Franciscanism as essential to
reinforcing the role of the Church; he also regarded St.
Francis himself as a model for his own personal role at its
head. He based this belief on the story of a miracle
involving the saint and.a previous pope, Innocent III, who had
approved the Rule of the Franciscan Order. When Francis came
to Innocent asking for authorization for his Order in 1209,

the Pope hesitated. The request was nothing out of the

 

‘1 See "Regola Non Bollata" in Fonti Francescane, pp. 99-

101, lines 1:3-4, II:9, 11-12. The translation used here is
from David Hugh Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 168.

20

ordinary: various sects often came to ‘the jpope seeking
sanction. But such groups often evolved in an undesirable
direction, even to the point of embracing heretical beliefs.
Was the pauperous Francis any different? Pope Innocent was
unsure about how to proceed. The answer came to him later
that night, in a miraculous dream. He envisioned Francis, all
alone, supporting the crushing weight of the falling Lateran
basilica with only the strength of his spine.42 Innocent
interpreted the dream as a sign that Francis of Assisi was
capable of shouldering the burden of the weakened Church and
that he would be instrumental in saving Western Christendom.
Nicholas, too, held this interpretation.

The dream of Innocent was later represented in mosaic in
Santa Maria in Aracoeli, a church in Rome which was, by
Nicholas IV's time, a major administrative center for the
Franciscan Order. The Lesser Brethren had been quick to
recognize the prestige accorded their organization in
connection with the Pope’s dream. The implications were
tremendously important. The dream was miraculous: it
suggested divine favor for their Order; Not only did it imply
that the group was ordained by God, but it also revealed that
the Creator Himself was sending a message to no less a
personage than the pope in order to proclaim the Franciscan

Order’s founder as savior of the Lateran. But the Lateran was

 

“ This story is first told by Tomasso da Celano, not in

his first Vita of San Francesco, but in the Vita Seconda
(2:17). It is also told by Bonaventura in his Legenda.Maior,
chap. 3, sect. 10.

21
the seat of the bishop of Rome (the pope), and saving a
tottering Lateran.was analogous to saving the crumbling Church
itself. The Franciscans looked upon the dream as a mandate
from God.

As a Franciscan theologian, Nicholas was well aware of
the tale of Innocent’s dream, and as a pious Franciscan, he
believed in the potential of St. Francis’s influence in
sustaining the Church. In his role as pope, it now became
Nicholas’s duty to bolster the Church, and he soon began to
draw parallels between himself and St. Francis. Nicholas IV
"hoped to see completed during his pontificate the dream of
Innocent III, the dream of the Poor One’s becoming sustainor
of the church.“3 Nicholas saw his Franciscanism as vital to
his papal role. It offered a basis for his policies, a saint
to be emulated, and a refuge for the weakened Church.

Employing Franciscan symbolism and theology in his
political and pontifical roles--as well as in the role of art
patron--was a natural means for Nicholas to address the
problem of fortifying the Roman and papal reputations. Yet
not all of Nicholas’s Franciscan involvement was politically
motivated. He held a true faith in St. Francis and his
teachings and had a deep loyalty to them and the Order. He
wanted to promote Franciscanism for its own sake because

Francis was a great and holy saint and because he wanted to

 

 

‘3 Irene Hueck, "L'Oreficeria in Umbria dalla Seconda

Meta del Secolo XII alla Fine del Secolo XIII," in San
.Francesco d’Assisi: Storia e Arte, ed. Carlo Pirovano (Milan:
IElecta, 1982), p. 171.

22
see the Franciscan message spread to all men.

Already as a cardinal, Nicholas (then still called
Girolamo) was promoting his beloved Francis in art. He
commissioned a long, rectangular box surmounted by a cross to
contain a relic of the True Cross (Figure 1). (It is now
known as the Reliquary of Sant’Andrea.)“ Neither artist nor
patron has left any identifying mark on the piece, but the
following evidence suggests it was created at Girolamo's
command.

Stylistically, it can be placed before his ascension to
the papacy in 1288; in fact, it probably was fabricated closer
to the late 12705.“5 In 1278, Girolamo was appointed
cardinal-priest at the church dedicated to Santa Pudenziana,
and this saint is one of the figures on the reliquary.
Because her cult was relatively rare, it seems reasonable to
date the work sometime between 1278 and 1281, the years in
which Girolamo held a post at the church dedicated to her.
The piece was probably a gift from Girolamo to Nicholas III in
thanksgiving for having been elevated to the cardinalate.“

Santa Pudenziana.was one of the earliest female Christian

 

‘4 Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, "La

Committenza e il Mecenatismo Artistico di Niccolo IV, " in
Niccolo IV: Un Pontificato tra Oriente ed Occidente, ed.
Enrico Menesto (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto
Medioevo, 1991), p. 197.

“ Ibid.

“ Ibid., p. 198.

Figure 1.

23

 

Reliquary of Sant’Andrea

h. J‘ ...-—. -

O _‘
V» y 3;, .
'1 L. ‘ .

.
n'j"~v

. ",L .-
”A

24
martyrs, and Girolamo had depicted her on the reliquary box
together with.St..Agnes, another early Christian.martyr. Other
saints from the Church's early history, however, have not been
chosen to accompany these martyrs. Rather, the Franciscan
saints Francis and Anthony of Padua are represented.

This work came frothirolamo, the minister general of the
Franciscans, and the choice of iconography sought to attest to
the faith he placed in the Order. .As a gift for Nicholas III,
the reliquary was also to act as a tribute for the kind
attention he had paid the Franciscans and as a remembrance of
his years as cardinal-protector of the group. It is also
significant for the fact that it combined very recent saints
(there were yet men living who remembered Francis personally)
with saints long established who had been canonized centuries
earlier.

This practice of inserting the Franciscans amidst the
revered saints from the early Church era would become an
important and more pronounced element in Nicholas’s later
commissions, when, as pope, he intended to create a Franciscan
iconography and artistic heritage that would serve to
perpetuate the Order and proclaim St. Francis as one of the
greatest saints, worthy of inclusion amidst even the likes of

St. Paul, St. Peter, and the Blessed Virgin.

Chapter Three: Franciscan Poverty

As things stood when Nicholas ascended to the papacy, creation
of a Franciscan artistic heritage was hampered by the way the
Order was run. It is important to understand that the early
Franciscans constituted a marginal society, an unstable
entity. They held. no jobs and. were often essentially
homeless, relying on charity for their very survival.
Francis’s ideal was that the brothers have no permanent
possessions, fixed places of dwelling, or income.“7 In fact,
they should possess nothing at all. Francis frowned on the
use of money or on storage or planning for future needs.

The strict Rule doomed 'the friars to a precarious
existence. And yet, such a stance on poverty was feasible
while Francis was still providing a living example and while
his disciples were relatively few in number; Growth, however,
demanded change. Inn the beginning, Francis had had eight
followers. But at the general chapter of 1221, three thousand
friars attended.48 By the time Girolamo (later Nicholas IV)

took charge of the Order as minister general in 1274, there

 

" Huber, p. 265.

“ C.J. Lynch, "Franciscans," New Catholic Encyclopedia
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), vol. 6, p. 40.

25

26

were some thirty-five thousand Franciscans.“’ .As buildings
and formal training became necessary, the rigid adherence to
poverty was fast becoming an unrealistic burden. As St.
Francis’s first few companions multiplied into a considerable
following, the ranks began clamoring for an organized Order,
one that would have "to propagate itself in an orderly
way."so Efficient management of larger numbers made strict
adherence to the original Rule impractical, probably
impossible. Modification of Francis’s exhortation to poverty
seemed unavoidable, and a gradual movement away from it soon
began. Without a more defined structure, the Order could
never gain prestige and command respect, nor approach the
level of seriousness, progress, and power that rival groups,
such as the Dominicans, could.

Some, though, dreaded the day that St. Francis’s original
intentions for his band of men would at last be abandoned.
These followers resisted the move toward a more relaxed
standard and came into conflict with their more liberal
brethren. The dispute caused severe growing pains. With
time, the Order's degree of asceticism became a major point of
contention. IBy 1274, the seeds of the controversy between the
"Spirituals," as strict adherents to the original Rule were

called, and the "Conventuals," who were more lax in their

 

” Parisciani, p. 33.

” Huber, p. 266.

27

interpretation, were sown.51

Strict adherence to the poverty principle made life
difficult, but the effect on Franciscan art was downright
disastrous. The creation or possession of splendid artworks
conflicted with Francis’s ethic. He believed in following the
word of the Gospels completely, and there he had found
written, "If thou be rich, thou shalt not be free from sin"
(Ecclesiasticus 11:10) and "No one can be my disciple unless
he renounces all for me" (Luke 14:25-33). These commands
precluded the possibility of luxury items, and even necessary
goods, such as liturgical objects and clothing, were to
express an absolute simplicityu .As.Hueck.points out, speaking
of early Franciscan chalices, "What do these objects reveal
that can be considered specifically Franciscan? Net much.
Only the wishes of the saint are manifested in the objects
that arise from the time of Francis."52

Thus a Franciscan iconography was hindered by the
strictures put in place by the Order’s founder himself. But
Nicholas realized the potential importance of visual art in
his time, an age in which illiteracy was the norm and society
was heavily superstitious. In order to salvage Franciscan

art, Nicholas found it necessary to align himself, if

 

51 These terms developed later, but for the sake of

convenience, they will be used here.

” Hueck, p. 168.

28
reluctantly,53 with the Conventuals. As long as Francis’s
strict ideals of poverty and austere simplicity remained in
force, the Order was excluded from artistic recognition and
prestige.

The detrimental effects of La Poverta were evident well
before Nicholas became pope. Nicholas III, who acted as
cardinal-protector of the Franciscan Order from 1263 to 1279
and maintained close ties with it as pope, was interested in
settling tensions within the Order as well as clarifying the
position on poverty to outside critics. He chose Girolamo
d'Ascoli, among others, to help him prepare a papal bull on
the subject. .After two months and clearance from "a committee
of expert canonical lawyers,"S4 the bull, Exiit Qui Seminat,
was published on August 14, 1279.

The document Girolamo helped write was a vastly important
one for his Order. It attempted to define precisely the
proper way to pursue the life of poverty. The stance on the
possession of money and.personal goods remained quite strict,
but the beginnings of a relaxation were apparent. The bull
said, among other things, that the friars were not obliged to

observe all counsels found in the Gospel, but only those

 

53 Despite many authors’ claims that Nicholas was an

adamant Conventual, Franchi maintains that he remained a
Spiritual at heart; circumstances alone forced him towards the
former. (Personal interview, July 1992.)

54

Huber, p. 173.

29

specifically named or implied in the Franciscan Rule.55 It
stated further that Christ Himself had occasionally accepted
and handled money, and though complete poverty was
meritorious, the friars were to be allowed to use temporal
goods "moderately."56 This represented a blow to the
Spirituals. The Rule itself, quoting Matthew 19:21, asked
that all Franciscans rid themselves of all possessions.

According to the new bull, the Friars Minor were still
not allowed to receive loans, but they were permitted to
appoint individuals to act, basically, as brokers: to sell
goods for money to attend to the friars’ needs and wants. The
original Rule clearly forbid.the friars to take money on loan,
"né direttamente ne per interposta persona.”7 Even real
estate was made available to them; rules were laid down
outlining methods of dealing with its use and transfer.58

This bull had been produced during Girolamo’ s cardinalate
in close conjunction with Nicholas III, a pope who took a
sincere interest in the Franciscan Order and saw the benefit
of helping it work out its conflicts. Girolamo admired him
and appreciated his efforts to help the Friars Minor; When he

later became pope, it was after Nicholas III that he named

 

55 Francesco’s Rule quoted rather extensively from the

Bible, especially from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

“ Huber, p. 174.

57 Francis of Assisi, "Regola Non Bollata," chap. 2,
sect. 6. Translation: neither directly nor by means of a
third party. (The translation is mine.)

“ Huber, pp. 174-75.

30
himself. Then, as Pope Nicholas IV, he went further in trying
to stabilize and unify the Franciscans.

On August 17, 1289, Nicholas issued the bull Supra
.Montem, now generally called the "Rule of Nicholas IV." This
Rule actually served a twofold.purpose. First, it helped ease
tensions within the Order. This was desirable for Nicholas
from both a personal and a professional viewpoint:
personally, because he had great spiritual conviction in the
Franciscan way of life; and, professionally, because as pope,
he knew the strength of the Order was an asset to the Roman
See. But Nicholas’s Rule also helped create an environment
that nurtured the possibility of a new Franciscan iconography.

The Supra Montem was a guideline for living the life of
a mendicant friar. The text was very similar to the Rule
written by St. Francis, but there were slight modifications.
This bull detailed even mundane activities: visiting
privileges, numbers of prayers to be said, and also such
issues as decorative versus necessary vestments. This
document, together with the bull of 1279 which he had helped
Nicholas III to write, eased the Franciscan insistence on
poverty in several ways. The friars no longer observed
absolute poverty. Financial transactions could be enacted as
long as they were handled by a third party. This latter
provision effectively considered Francis’ 3 hatred of money and
at the same time technically avoided falling into the sin of
usury, which the Scriptures (e.g., Leviticus 25:35-37 and

Exodus 12:25) denounce.

31

Even real estate could be dealt with, the possession of
which had been anathema to St. Francis. Brother Leo, one of
Francis's first disciples, illustrated the point with this
story: 'thejpeople of Assisi once constructed a house near the
church of Santa Maria in Porziuncola for the use of the Friars
Minor. When Francis discovered the building, he climbed onto
the roof and began tearing off its tiles, offended that the
friars had accepted such luxurious quarters.59 Christ
Himself had said, "Foxes have holes; birds, nests; but the Son
of Man hath not where to lay His head" (Matthew 8:20). The
founder’s opinion on the matter was eminently clear.

Nicholas IV in his papal bull had ingeniously managed to
stay close to the spirit of Francis’s ideals while
simultaneously beginning to lessen their severity. This
relaxation was welcomed by many of the Friars Minor. Before
the Rule of Nicholas, many confraternities had already been
operating under various modifications of the Rule. Some
groups of Friars Minor had become quite diversified.
Nicholas’s bull served to homogenize the Order into a united
force. As Olinger writes, "On the whole,...until Nicholas IV
there was no [one rule] generally observed."‘° Having a

clear indication of expected.behavior from a higher authority

 

5’ Brother Leo, Lo Specchio di Perfezione, in Fonti

Francescana, 3rd ed., Biblioteca Francescana di Milano
(Padova: Grafiche Mesaggero di S. Antonio, 1977), chap. 7.

6° Livarius Olinger, "Third Order of St. Francis,"
catholic Encyclopedia (New York: The Gilmary Society, 1913),
vol. 14, p. 641.

32
helped to reduce internal quarreling and thus eliminated one
of the obstacles to a unified Order.

The stricter friars of Le Marche at one point called
Nicholas a "heretical forger"61 because of his lax
interpretation of the Rule. But even the Spirituals, as Huber
has noted,

pressed by the necessity of seeking a daily

existence, were soon obliged to relinquish by

accepting the papal interpretations given the Order

by Nicholas IV. They soon began to realize what

the Conventuals had already experienced, that the

Order was a living organization and resting on a

foundation of absolute poverty as intended so

ideally by St. Francis, was really a moral

impossibility.62 V
Nicholas had succeeded: he had injected a new unity of rule
and direction into his ailing Order.

Having laid the groundwork, Nicholas wasted no time in
launching papal art programs. His art, like his Supra Mbntem,
was always cleverly calculated.to keep the Franciscan Order at
the fore. He used several methods by which to achieve a
higher and more visible status for the Order. First he
carefully selected which artistic projects to patronize,
always choosing those with strong ties to Franciscan history
or intentions or those that could be approached in a uniquely
Franciscan.manneru He also manipulated the iconography in his

projects in order to proclaim Franciscan ideals or to promote

the Order.

 

“ Huber, p. 196.

“ Ibid., p. 263.

33

Franciscan favoritism was not a specifically articulated
policy of Nicholas’s (though writings can be found that are
definitely indicative of his inclinations“), but his actions
clearly reveal his Franciscan bent. He established a pattern
of utilizing members of his Order as artists, architects,
envoys, and messengers in all phases of his reign. He also
issued decrees that acted as incentives to visit or contribute
to Franciscan art. For example, to entice penitents to visit
Franciscan churches, Nicholas issued a long series of bulls
granting indulgences of one year and forty days to the
pilgrim.“ Ike also channeled monetary contributions toward
projects he favored. For example, the bull issued May 14,

1288, near the beginning of his papal reign, stated the

following:

Dilectis filiis ministro .provincie et. custodi
Beati Francisci mandat quatenus omnia que in
quibuscumque .pecuniis seu .monetis in ecclesiis
Beati Francisci de Assisio et Sanctae Mariae de
Potriuncula a christifidelibus offeruntur, per
quasdam personas de praedictorum ordine non
existentes colligi faciant et custodiri in
conservationem ejusdem ecclesie Sancti Francisci ac
subventionem fratum ad ecclesias confluentium
supradictas.6s

 

‘3 Notably in letters to members of the Tartar court,

wherein Nicholas asks that the courtiers may be supportive of
the Franciscan missionaries and their work (see J.D. Ryan,
"Nicholas IV and the Eastern Missionary Effort," p. 88), and

in such inscriptions as the one at St. John Lateran (see this
text p. 43).

64

Langlois, ed., nos. 5236-5282.

“ Ibid., no. 73.

34

This bull made offerings given at the churches of San
Francesco d’Assisi and Santa Maria in Porziuncola available
for financing work.performed.at the basilica of San.Francesco.

Such bulls as the one above reveal Nicholas’s tendency
toward Conventualism, and that tendency increased the
possibility of artistic development by relaxing the call to a
spartan lifestyle that precluded the creation of luxurious
items. His introduction of iconographical changes (as will be
discussed at St. John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, et. al.)
represents a carefully crafted program to create an artistic

heritage for the Franciscan Order.

Chapter Four: St. thn Lateran

The inscription in St. John Lateran, Ecclesiarum Urbis et
Orbis Mater et Caput, proclaims it to be the mother and head
of all the churches in the city of Rome and in the world. As
the cathedral (or bishop’s seat) of Rome, it was also the
domain of the popes. It was here that coronations usually
took place and here, too, that ecclesiastical meetings were
held. As one of Rome’s oldest churches, it also had direct
links to early Christianity and to Constantine, the Empire’s
first Christian leader.66 .Archeological work confirms that
it was he who founded.it, presenting it to Pope St. Melchiades
as early as 313, the year in which Christianity gained the
government’s official tolerance." By Nicholas’s day, the
building had stood for nearly one thousand years as a symbol
of temporal power’s cession to the higher authority of God.
The Lateran may owe its beginning to the human will of
Emperor Constantine, but it became an even more revered locus
when it received approval from the divine. A.p0pular legend,

generally accepted long before Nicholas’s time, recounted a

 

‘6 Richard Krautheimer, Rome: .Profile of' a City

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 21.

“ Richard Krautheimer and Spencer Corbett, "La Basilica
Constantiniana a1 Laterano: Un Tentativo di Ricostruzione,"
RiVista di Archeologia Cristiana 43 (1967), p. 125.

35

36
supernatural event: As Pope St. Silvester dedicated the
basilica on November 9, 324, a vision of the head of Christ
miraculously appeared in the vault of the apse.68 A mosaic
was soon installed to memorialize this sign God had sent of
His satisfaction with the dedication of the new church.

It was this basilica that Nicholas selected as the
subject of his first major artistic commission. It had
suffered the negligence of preceding popes. Honorius III had
lavished attention on St. Paul’s outside the Walls and St.
Lawrence outside the Walls, and Nicholas III had put his
effort into work at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s, and "thus a
repair and redecoration of the Lateran...could well have
seemed overdue."”

At St. John’s, Nicholas IV rebuilt the apse, added an
ambulatory, and transformed the basilica into a cruciform
shape by the addition of a transept, shortening the
Constantinian nave to make room for it.70 Nicholas’s
undertaking, however, was not simply a routine repair; his
early decision to refurbish the Lateran was a calculated
political measure. Repairing the church of the popes was a

sign of the renewed vitality of the papacy and of commitment

 

‘8 J. Wilpert, "La Decorazione Constantiniana della
Basilica Lateranense," Rivista di Archeologia cristiana VI
(1929), PP. 108-109.

“ Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 450.
7° Richard Krautheimer and.Spencer Corbett, "The Building
of the Nave Piers at S. Giovanni in Laterano after the Fire of
1361," Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 43 (1967), p. 158.

37

to the Church in Rome. Nicholas proceeded to enlarge and
beautify this building "to such an extent that it was reckoned
the wonder of the age."71 As Gardner states, "For Nicholas
IV, the restoration of [St. John Lateran] was...an affirmation
of his commitment to Rome, and in a deeply personal way a
symbolic statement of his own role in the unfolding of the
Franciscan design."72

There are several aspects of the transformation of St.
John Lateran that reflect this ”Franciscan design." God.spoke
to II Poverello as he meditated on the crucifix at the church
of San Damiano in Assisi, giving the saint a simple
instruction: "Rebuild My Church."73 Francis, in his
characteristically unassuming manner, took this quite
literally, immediately taking it upon himself to see to the
repair of San Damiano.“l Nicholas had now been chosen by
God, via the cardinal electorate, and given the same charge.
The fact that he literally repaired the building ("renewed"
the church) can be viewed as a reenactment of the literal
interpretation Francis made when he "renewed" San Damiano.
That the simple Francis would obey the command literally is
hardly surprising; .Although.he wanted nothing for himself, he

had a deep respect for church buildings and hated to see them

 

'“ Alta Macadam, ed., Rome & Environs (London: Ernest
Benn Ltd., 1989), p. 213.

" Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 450.

” Bonaventura, Legenda.Maior, chap. 2, sect. 1.

“ Karrer, p. 62.

38

in disrepairu He had instructed.his followers to pray, "Padre
nostro! Ti adoriamo in tutte le tue chiese che sono nel
mondo."75

But although St. Francis literally saved a few church
buildings, he was regarded by Franciscans as a savior of the
whole Church. The concept of Francis as savior existed even
during the saint’s lifetime as a result of Innocent III’s

" later represented in Franciscan art, notably in a

dream,7
mosaic scene on the facade of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. That
work, sadly now nearly destroyed, showed Pope Innocent in
slumber at left, enclosed in a graceful array of arches and
columns that formed the architectural space of the sleeping
chamber, the blankets mussed by the Pope’s fitful rest. On
the right side, a very tall St. Francis was visible. He stood
beside the Lateran basilica, which was depicted at an angle to
suggest its impending crash. The saint used the crown of his
head and his upraised'arms to save the building from its
fall.7'7 Literally and. figuratively, Francis rescues the

church (Church) from collapse.

Because Francis was seen as savior of the Church and the

 

" Celano, Vita Prima, chap. 17, sect. 45. Translation:

Our Father! We adore you in all your churches that are in the
world. (The translation is mine.)
76

See page 20.
W The work is well described by Pico Cellini, "Di Fra
Guglielmo e di Arnolfo," Bollettino d’Arte 40 (1955), p. 224,.
and by Maria Andaloro, "Il Sogno di Innocenzo III
all’Aracoeli, Nicolo IV e la Basilica di S. Giovanni in

gaterano," Studi in Onore di Giulio Carlo Argan 1 (1984), p.
9.

39

Lateran was a symbol of the entire Church, Nicholas "As a
Franciscan...could not avoid concerning himself with St. John
Lateran."78

The ways St. John’s was related to Franciscan life did
not stop there. For men living in Pope Nicholas IV’s era, the
Council of 1215 (at which time Innocent III was pope) was the
most recent Lateran Council in memory. It was quite an
important gathering from the Franciscan standpoint, since the
future of their Order hinged.on.a decision made at the Lateran
that year; Francis had written a.Regula Primitive in 1209 and
had taken it personally to St. John Lateran, but he did not
receive official written approval for it or for his Order
immediately.79 Five years later, the Lateran Council decreed
that religious orders could not continue to form under new
rules; they had to adopt a rule already in existence, such as
that of the Benedictines or Cistertians. The Council’s
pronouncement would have put an end to the Order of the
Franciscans, and yet, the Council members at the Lateran let
the Rule of Francis stand as if it had been validated by
written papal decree. The Rule of the Franciscan Order, on
which Pope Nicholas IV based his life, had had its start at

St. John Lateran.

Part of Nicholas’s renewal of the church involved

 

7° Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, "La Committenza...," p.

204.

79 John R. H. Moorman, The Sources for the Life of St.

Francis of Assisi (Farnborough, Eng.: Gregg Press, Ltd.,
1966), p.27.

40

reconstructing the deteriorating, fifth-century apse mosaic
that commemorated the miracle of Christ’s appearance in the
apse on the day of the church’s dedication. Sadly, Nicholas’s
mosaic was intentionally destroyed between March 1883 and
October 1884, when the choir was extended during the reign of
Pope Pius IX. What is visible now is simply an eighteenth-
century replica of the thirteenth-century original. Yet the
reproduction is zur unusually faithful one, judging' from
drawings in the possession of the Vatican done before
Nicholas's mosaic was dismantled. The designs were made by
placing paper on the mosaic surface and carefully recording
the composition, tessera for tessera. Detailed color
notations were made on the reverse sides.80 Since the
nineteenth-century mosaic corresponds well with these designs,
the later version is thought to be a faithful reproduction of
its predecessor.

But how faithful is Nicholas’s mosaic to its fifth-
century forerunnerfl’iNicholas’s apse shows four rivers flowing
from a hill from which rises a bejeweled cross struck by rays
that emanate from the dove of the Holy Ghost, who flies in
golden space just above it. The upper region of the apse
contains within an arc a bust of Christ flanked by two groups
of angels that float in a heavenly realm (Figure 2).

Below, the central image is flanked by two groups of

 

8° Alessandro»Tomei, "New Acquisitions for Jacopo Torriti

in S. Giovanni in Laterano," Arte Medievale I/l (1987), p.
186.

41

cmuopmq coon .um mo Dammofi owns

b“

. . Wimp‘g

i.

.N owsmflm

 

42
saints. On the left are Paul, Peter, a half-sized St.
Francisand an even smaller, kneeling Nicholas, and the Blessed
Virgin. On the right stand St. John the Baptist and a small
St. Anthony of Padua followed by Sts. John the Evangelist and
Andrew. Beneath lie aquatic scenes and animals.

There is no doubt that Nicholas’s program emulated the
paleochristian work that preceded jig The portion of the
mosaic representing the head of Christ is attached to a slab
of travertine about three feet in height and set into the
Torriti mosaic: it was transplanted directly from the old
apse mosaic into the new, emphasizing Nicholas's concern for
restoring the head of Christ to the exact spot of its
miraculous appearance on the day of the church’s
dedication.81

Other elements seem to be modelled directly on the
predecessor. These include the jeweled cross, the four rivers
springing from the mount, the lambs and deer which drink from
the rivers, the aquatic scenes below, and the general
composition of two groups of three saints each that flank a
central depiction of the divine.82

Nicholas, therefore, did not freely choose all
iconographical content. But neither did he precisely recreate

the old.mosaic, and inspection shows that Nicholas managed an

 

“ Guglielmo Matthiae,.Mbsaici Medoevali delle Chiese di

Roma (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1967), p. 347.

“ Ibid., pp. 349, 351; see also Walter Oakeshott, The
.MOsaics of Rome (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), pp. 70,
94, and 312.

43
injectionroflhis own iconographical elements that indicate the
nature of his artistic commission was in part propagandistic,
intended to bolster the Church’s position and to promote the
"Franciscan design" mentioned by Gardner.

The most obvious deviation from the original mosaic lies
in the addition of the prime Franciscans saints, Anthony of
Padua and Francis. Anthony is inserted on the right, between
St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist; Francis is
placed at left, flanked by the Blessed Virgin and St. Peter.

The inclusion of these two saints must have been shocking
to the Romans who saw it. It is true that the Franciscan
figures are but a little more than half the height of the
others, less fair of face, and look the part of the tattered
Friars Minor. But these concessions hardly diminish the
difficult fact that St. Francis here stands on the same level
as the majestic St. Peter and has taken Peter’s place as the
figure closest to Jesus’ right hand.

Nicholas openly addressed the subject of St. Francis in
an inscription to the left of the apse, in which he directly
connects his restoration of the Lateran with the dream of
Innocent III, in which Francis upheld the church:

Tertius ecclesias pater Innocentius hora qua sese

dederat sompno nutare ruina hanc videt ecclesiam

mox vir pannosus at asper despectusque, humerum

supponens, sustinet illam at pater evigilans

Franciscus prospicit atque vere est hic inquit quem

vidimus; iste ruentem ecclesiamque fidemque feret

sic ille petitis cunctis concessis liber letusque

recessit Francisci proles primus de sorte minorum

Hieronimus quarti Nicolai nomine surgens romanus
praesul partes circumspicit huius ecclesias certam

44

iam dependere ruina ante retroque levat destructa
reformat et ornat et fundamentis partem componit ad
ymis. Postremo quae prima Dei veneranda refulsit
visibus humanis facies, hec integra sistens, quo
fuerat steteratque situ relocatur eodem. Presulis
ecce tui, Deus, hec amplectere vota que tibi
persolvit, domus huius amando decorem serva,
vivifica, celo terraque beatum: effige nec manibus
tradas hunc hostis iniqui: Ingrediens populus
devotus munera sumat que bonus hic pastor dedit
indulgendo benigne et larga pietate pater peccata
remittens. Anno ab incarnations Domini nostri Jesu
Christi M.CC.XCI pontificatus eiusdem Domini
Niccolai PP 1111 anno III.”

This inscription recalls the text of the Legenda Maior, the
official biography of St. Francis sanctioned by the
Franciscans and written by St. Bonaventura. In it,
Bonaventura used three adjectives to describe Francis:
"pauperculus, modicus, despectus." But Nicholas has changed
the words in his inscription to "pannosus, asper, despectus"
(meaning ragged, rough, despised) . Perhaps Nicholas wished to
soften the tone of his description of Francis to render less
jolting the inclusion of the saint in the midst of Peter and
the Virgin. But Bonaventura’s description is already modest

enough. By doing away with the word "pauperculus," Nicholas

 

” V. Forcella, Iscrizioni vol. 8, Roma, (1876), p. 15,

no. 16. The most pertinent portion of the lengthy inscription
comes in the opening statements, which say that Pope Innocent
III, father of the Church, here dreamed of seeing the church
tottering to ruin when he spied a ragged, rough, and despised
man support the church on his shoulders, and that this man was
truly the vigilant brother Francis. The inscription goes on
to say that Girolamo, now Nicholas IV, first Franciscan pope,
following the example of Francis, now sustains, refurbishes,
and decorates the church, and replaces the miraculous head of
Christ in its original position. (I thank Dr. Paul Deussen
and Thomas Casaletto for their kind assistance with. my
interpretation of the passage.)

45
avoided the issue of poverty, a major point of contention in
his day. The omission further reflects his policy of relaxing
the Franciscan Order’s view on riches.

In an inscription that borders the apse mosaic, Nicholas
again speaks of Francis, describing himself as "a son of
Blessed Francis."84 This reinforces what is suggested by the
mosaic itself, for next to the dwarfish St. Francis there
kneels an even tinier Pope Nicholas. He does indeed appear to
be a son of the mendicant saint. His hands are clasped in
prayer, as are Francis’s; in fact, save for the fact that he
is genuflecting, his posture is very similar to the saint’s.
His face, too, has received similar treatment. The tilt of
his head matches Francis’s, as do the long, straight nose and
the prominent beard. The Madonna rests a protective hand on
the tiny pope's headdress, recalling the special devotion both
Francis and Nicholas held for her.

Nicholas also chose to adapt the mosaic’s composition to
emphasize the clearly Franciscan concept of renewed
spirituality. It is seen here in both its contemplative state
(as represented by the deer drinking from the rivers of
Paradise, a reference to the faithful’s drinking in the Word
of the four Gospels) and the active state. James the Less,
who appears between windows amidst other apostles, challenges
the viewer to the active life exemplified by St. Francis with

words from his epistle, written here on his scroll: "Be ye

 

” Mann, p. 203.

46

doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own
selves"—-a significant choice of words for' a Franciscan
pope.as

In addition to recreating’ the mosaic in the apse,
Nicholas also made structural changes to the church. He had
a transept inserted into the Lateran.basilica, a step he later
repeated at Santa Maria Maggiore. According to Gardner,

The reasons for this are probably two in number.

Primarily there was the desire to make the two

ancient basilicas conform to the pattern of S.

Pietro in Vaticano and S. Paolo fuori le Mura, two

of the most honored churches in Rome. A secondary

stimulus may have come from the recent example of

the two mendicant churches in Rome, 8. Maria in

Aracoeli and S. Maria SOpra Minerva.86
It is obvious why Nicholas may have wanted to emulate the
forms of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s: They were two of Rome’s
most important churches. Also worth noting is the fact that
"Peter’s primacy (enhanced in medieval sentiment by Paul’s
closeness) and his presence in Rome were the assumed basis for
the presence there of pope and curia."87 St. John’s
represented the pope and curia, and Nicholas wanted to assure
that the church compared favorably with Rome’s other major
basilicas.

The lattem'part.of'Gardner's statement, which relates the

transept additions to IRome’s :mendicant churches, prompts

 

” Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 450.

8‘ J. Gardner, ”Pope Nicholas IV and the Decoration of
Santa Maria Maggiore," Zeitschrift ffir Kunstgeschichte 36:1
(1973)] po 3.

” Brentano, p. 84.

47
further investigation. What about Santa Maria in Aracoeli and
Santa Maria sopra Minerva?

These were the two Franciscan-run churches of Rome. It
is interesting to note that S. Maria in Aracoeli, which some
claim Nicholas consecrated,88 was the site of the Tiburtine
Sibyl’s foretelling to Augustus of the imminent coming of
Christ ("ECCE ARA PRIMOGENITI DEI") .89 The church’s name derives
from this incident, and such a "divine" revelation of the true
God and Church is not unrelated to Innocent’s dream of St.
Francis sustaining the Lateran, the miracle that occurred in
St. John’s on the day of its dedication, or the miracle of the
snow at Santa Maria Maggiore.” Generating similar building
layouts helped to create a correlation among churches that
each boasted a tale of direct, divine confirmation of the
presence of Christ in Rome as head of the true Church.

The Aracoeli was a Benedictine church until 1250, at
which time Innocent IV“ (1243-1254) entrusted. it to the
Franciscans, and it was soon partially rebuilt."1 The nave
was slightly shortened in order to create space for a transept

across it, and "thus the church was expanded to create its

 

” Luciano Bellosi, La Pecora di Giotto (Turin: Giulio

Einaudi, 1985), p. 29.

” Macadam, Rome and Environs, p. 70.

90

See page 52.

n C. Cecchelli, Le Chiese di Roma dal Secolo IV al XIX,
2 vols. (Rome: Edizioni R.O.R.E. di Nicola Ruffolo, 1942),
vol. 1, p. 666.

48
new, cruciform shape."92 Santa Maria sopra Minerva, too, was
rebuilt during Nicholas's lifetime, even more recently, in
1280.93 The work at St. John Lateran and Santa Maria
Maggiore that created a resemblance to the recently renovated
mendicant churches makes the supposition of an intentional
reference to the latter churches even more compelling.

The meaning of the cruciform plan itself suggests yet
another level in Nicholas’s iconographical program. The
addition of a transept to a longitudinal basilica alters the
building to resemble a cross, a shape reminiscent of Christ’s
passion and death. The basilica was a longstanding Roman
building type that had survived from the Empire, but had at
that time been used typically for secular buildings. It would
be a much better reflection of the basilica’s new function if
the very shape of the building could bear some sign of the
Savior. The architectural modification to include the
transept could itself help to direct the faithful away, once
and for all, from Rome’s pagan past and remind them that Rome
was no longer the center of a pagan empire but, rather, seat
of the Church, the gateway to salvation.

The cruciform shape had come to be an increasingly
important symbol under the influence of St. Francis. Bairati
and Finocchi tell us that "To the Franciscans is owed the

exceptional growth in the production of painted crucifixes,

 

” Cellini, p. 223.

” Cecchelli, vol. 1, p. 593.

49
done in memorial of the one that, according to legend, spoke
to St. Francis in the church of San Damiano, commanding him to
renew the Church."94 Francis himself instructed his
disciples to pray with these words: "Padre nostro! Ti
adoriamo .perche con la tua santa croce hai redento il

mondo,"95

and he continually pointed out to his followers
crosses or the forms of crosses that could be made out in
shapes on the ground or walls or amongst tree branches.96
Nicholas, as a mendicant friar, was well aware of Franciscan
symbolism and wanted to renew his church under the sign of
Christ that was so important to Francis. Even in
architectural considerations, Nicholas was ever mindful of the
Franciscan cause.

Another way his concern manifested itself was in his
consistent use of Franciscans in every phase of papal
operations. Nicholas employed Friars Minor to act as envoys,
missionaries, messengers, confessors, and cardinals. He also
understandably favored his Order when choosing men to execute
his artistic projects. What artist could be more sympathetic
toward Nicholas’s desire to integrate the Franciscan message

into his works than a fellow friar? It is no accident that

Jacopo Torriti, a Franciscan monk, was Nicholas’s preferred

 

“ Eleonaora Bairati and Anna Finocchi, Arte in Italia

(Torino: Loescher Editore, 1988), II, p. 401.

” Celano, Vita Prima, chap. 17, sect. 45. Translation:
Our Father! We adore you because with your holy cross you
have redeemed the world. (The translation is mine).

“ Ibid.

50

artist. Nicholas acknowledged the fact in the apse at the
Lateran by representing Franciscan artisans at work. Added
on, in very small scale at the feet of the apostles--one
between Sts. Simon and James and the other between Sts.
Bartholomew and Matthew--are two tiny Franciscan craftsmen.
These figures represent the artists responsible for the work,
Jacopo Torriti and Jacopo da Camerino, both Franciscans.

Their presence in the mosaic program accomplished two
things: first, it pictured men working with their hands (and
St. Francis had encouraged manual labor, considering it a:
means of avoiding evil”) to create a work that would glorify
God; second, by acknowledging that Franciscan craftsmen were
responsible for such a sumptuous work of art (the mosaic
medium was a most expensive one), Nicholas gained another
small victory in his quest to alter the staunchly spartan
Franciscan attitude. The pope himself, whom Franciscans
highly respected, here communicates that the creation of an
extravagant artwork in precious materials was permissible when
undertaken for a divine purpose. Such was the modern view
held by Nicholas, a product of the close of the thirteenth
century, and one that St. Francis, active at the century’s

dawn, would have taken to task.

 

97

Huber, p. 921.

Chapter Five: Santa Maria Maggiore

Nicholas immediately embarked on a second major commission:
refurbishment of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Several
considerations convinced Nicholas that this edifice was a
particularly good choice for patronage in his attempt to
promote Rome’s position as head of the Church.

As one of the four patriarchal basilicas (St. Peter’s,
St. Paul’s outside the Walls, and St. John Lateran were the
others), it was among the oldest--built between 432 and 440—-
and most venerated churches in Rome.98 in: was also one of
the most visible: Santa Maria Maggiore was the first major
Christian church to have been built within the city. Churches
predating it had been relegated to Rome’s periphery. And
unlike the Lateran, this church was built, not at the behest
of a civic power, but at the command of the bishop of Rome.

Santa Maria Maggiore came into existence at a time when,
because of Christianity’s new legal status, the bishops of
Rome began to strive for more authority. These bishops had

begun to call themselves "popes,”9 and Sixtus III, Santa

 

9° Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine

Architecture, (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 93.

” G. H. Joyce, "Pope," Catholic Encyclopedia, 18 vols.,
ed. Charles G. Herberman, et. al. (New York: The Encyclopedia
Press, 1913), vol. 12, p. 270.

51

52
Maria’s founder-—although legend would take us back eighty
years further, claiming Liberius (352-356) as its founder--is
described in the dedicatory mosaic inscription above the apse
as bishop of God’s people, "EPISCOPUS PLEBI DEI.“

Santa Maria was also an important stopping point in many
ecclesiastical processions, and it held a revered relic with
a direct link to Jesus Christ: the Santa Culla, thought to be
a fragment from the crib of the Christ Child.

This church, like St. John Lateran, was associated with
the story of a miracle. On August 5, 352, so the story goes,
Pope Liberius and a Roman patrician named Giovanni received
word in a dream that the Blessed Virgin wished them to build
a church for her on a site that she would indicate. The next
morning, despite the heat, the men found a blanket of snow
marking out precisely the area on which to build the
foundations of the church. This miracle is significant
because it claimed a divine inception of the church and.marked
it as, not simply a place of worship, but a site specifically
and divinely designated within Rome, unlike its predecessors.

All of these factors combined. to :make Santa. Maria
Maggiore a wise choice for patronage by Nicholas, who needed
to strengthen Rome’s essential position in relation to the
Church. Since Santa Maria Maggiore, unlike many of the other
contemporary churches, was not associated with a martyr cult

and its inscriptions speak of it as being dedicated to the

53

"POPOLO DI DIo,"100 a move to restore the church would suggest
"the unification of all the people of God under the new law
and the identification of Rome as a new Jerusalem."101

Nicholas was motivated to favor this church for
Franciscan reasons as well. Franciscans traditionally held a
special devotion to the Blessed Mother, and their Order had
expended much effort in furthering her stature within the
Church. Bonaventura, the Franciscan minister general who
preceded Girolamo d’Ascoli and who later was canonized a
saint, was particularly devoted to her. He preached many
sermons that lauded her and persuaded his congregations of the

”2 Santa Maria

verity of her bodily assumption into heaven.
Maggiore was the first church in Rome to be dedicated to the
Virgin, making it a natural choice for attention from the
Franciscan Nicholas.

In choosing to embellish Santa Maria Maggiore, Nicholas
was once again placing himself in the role of a modern St.
Francis. After receiving his commission to rebuild God’s
Church, Francis chose a building dedicated to Mary (Santa
Maria in Porziuncula at Assisi) as his second restoration

project. Nicholas, who felt he had received a similar

commission from God and who had closely studied the life of

 

1W Bairati & Finocchi, p. 190. Translation: people of

God.

1“ Ibid.
”2 S. Bonaventurae, Opera Omnia, (Ad. Claras .Aquas
(Quaracchi), Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1901),
pp. 687-705.

54
Francis,103 naturally wanted to emulate that saint.

The work commissioned at Santa Maria was similar to that
executed at St. John’s. At Santa Maria Maggiore, Nicholas
installed a new apse some eighteen feet behind the existing
triumphal arch, which.was left intact, created a new'mosaic to
replace the fifth-century work in the Constantinian apse. He
also added a transept across the eighteen-foot space between
the new apse and the old one.104

The new apse decoration consisted of a central scene of
the Virgin, who shares the same seat with her son, Jesus, as
he places a jeweled crown upon her head. The two are
surrounded by starry heavens and enclosed in a circle bordered
with.more stars. They are flanked.by two groups of angels who
support the circle and by a group of saints on either side.
To the left of the apse, from left to right, are St. Francis
of .Assisi, St. Paul, St. Peter, and the kneeling' Pope
Nicholas. A¢.right kneels Cardinal Colonna.(whose family took
responsibility for carrying out Nicholas’s plans for Santa
Maria.Maggiore after his death in 1292), St. John the Baptist,
and.St. John the Evangelist” .Above, graceful scrollwork fills
the apse, and below lie aquatic scenes. Two more scenes

appear outside the curve of the apse: St. Jerome with Paula

 

1” As minister general, in a letter dated May 5, 1276,

Girolamo had ordered the collection of all "materials and
testimonies" pertaining to the life of San Francesco and any
other Franciscan saints. See Huber, p. 169.

1“ H. Henkels, "Remarks on the Late Thirteenth-century
Apse Decorations in Santa Maria Maggiore," Simiolus 4 (1971),
p. 128.

55
and Eustochia at left and Mathias Preaching at right. (There
were important relics of both Jerome and Mathias at the
church.) Below the apse are five scenes from the Life of
Mary: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Dormition, the
Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation in the Temple
(Figure 3).

It is not certain to what degree Torriti’s mosaic
imitates the older one, but the Constantinian apse was not
torn down until work on the new apse was well underway.”5
It was available to Torriti as a point of reference, and most
believe his mosaic was directly influenced by its

predecessor,106

conceived of more as an updated version of a
venerable antique mosaic rather than a completely new
creation. Indeed, some motifs were directly transplanted from
the old to the new. Walter Oakeshott reports that some
passages, such as some of the curving scrolls, water scenery,
and animals, were taken directly from the older work.107
Christine‘Verzar Bornstein notes that medieval inhabited
scrollwork motifs were sometimes derived from the pillars

decorated with such designs that had been used in the ninth

century to decorate a chapel dedicated to the Virgin in Old

 

1” Ibid., p. 135.

“’5 Ibid., p. 134; see also Gardner, "Pope Nicholas
IV...," p. 2, and Matthiae, p. 355.

1“ Oakeshott, p. 312.

56

ouoflmomz mflumz mucnm wo Denmofi owmd

m ousmflm

 

57

St. Peter’s basilica.108 Since the pillars were associated
with the resting place of the first pope, the inhabited
scrollwork design had come to be a symbol of papal Rome.
Nicholas was anxious to employ such symbolism. This meaning
and the added incentive of the scrollwork’s presence in a
chapel dedicated to Mary may have been factors in his decision
to incorporate scrollwork from the older mosaic and to make
such heavy use of the motif in the mosaic’s overall design.

Also worth noting is the Franciscan devotion to nature,
possibly indulged here by Nicholas in his utilization of the
inhabited scrollwork motifs. The Franciscans believed that,
since God had consented to become man, man and his world were
both part of God’s supernatural order; all natural things,
even the animals and plants like those seen in Santa Maria's
scrollwork, were thus holy things to be revered.

Henkels reports about Nicholas's new apse mosaic that
"some pieces were transferred whole, some restored and re-
constituted in the new apse,...others were copied" from the
old.109 Quite possibly copied were the groups of angels and
the general composition. It is uncertain whether the saints
depicted were those of the fifth—century work as well. Here,
they all work coherently within the composition" The presence

of Peter and Paul in medieval Roman mosaics was well nigh

 

1” Christine Verzar Bornstein, Portals and Politics in

the Early Italian City-state: The Sculpture of Nicholaus in
Context (Parma, Italy: Universita degli Studi di Parma,
Istituto di Storia dell’Arte, 1988), p. 36.

109

Henkels, p. 143.

58

mandatory, and the two are placed side by side on the left.
The saints who appear on the right side, John the Baptist and
John the Evangelist, allude to the Madonna’s major biblical
roles. John the Baptist retains the usual position held in
deesis scenes, and John the Evangelist’s presence recalls
Mary’s role at the foot of the cross during the Crucifixion.

Some elements of the mosaic were obviously completely
new; As he had done at the Lateran, so too Nicholas now added
at Santa Maria Maggiore the saints of the Franciscan Order.
Francis stands left of Sy. Paul and St. Anthony of Padua is to
the right of John the Evangelist. The inclusion of these
recently canonized saints at the Lateran alongside such
established and beloved ones as Peter and Paul had been
without. precedent. 1k: that church, they' were at least
modestly reduced in size, but at Santa Maria. Maggiore,
Nicholas represented them on a scale nearly equal to the
others. They stand just a few inches shorter than the rest
and can certainly be considered as fully human in size as the
other saints present. The increase in height of the
Franciscan saints is countered by the modest gesture of their
relegation to the end spaces, farthest from Christ and Mary.

The figure of St. Francis in particular exhibits a
distinct change from the Francis portrayed in the program at
St. John Lateran. At St. John’s, the tiny saint appears
bearded and hairy; his appearance borders on the disheveled

(Figure 4). Here, he has experienced a transformation. He

59

 

Figure 4. St. John Lateran: detail of St. Francis

60

was...”

 

ths.
. wirfl ._. . 4.

detail of St. Francis

Santa Maria Maggiore:

Figure 5.

61

has acquired.a:modest bOW’in his stance that perhaps serves to
maintain a slight difference in rank between himself and his
nearest pictured neighbors, Sts. Peter and Paul, but no longer
is Francis the ragged pauper he was at St. John Lateran
(Figure 5). His face has been transformed. It is more open
and confident; the heavy crease in the brow is gone and the
weary look in the eyes has disappeared.

Also radically new is the clean-shaven chin. This marks
the first time St. Francis is portrayed without a beard.110
The artist is once again Torriti, Nicholas’s preferred worker
and the same man who created the bearded St. Francis at St.
John Lateran about five years earlier. What occurred during
the time between the mosaics at St. John’s and Santa Maria
Maggiore that accounts for this major iconographical change?
Bellosi suggests Francis was "shaved" because there was a
desire to represent him in a more respectable manner rather
than as the "straccione sporco"111 (or dirty ragamuffin) he
was reputed to be.

Francis did, in fact, wear a beard. Tommaso da Celano
described him this way:

Di statura piuttosto piccola, testa regolare e
rotonda, volto un po’ovale e proteso, fronte piana

e piccola, occhi neri, di misura normale e tutto

semplicita, capelli pure oscuri, sopracciglia

dritte, naso giusto, sottile e diritto, orecchie
dritte ma ‘piccole, tempie .piane, lingua .mite,

 

1” Bellosi, La Pecora..., p. 8.

“1 Pietro Scarpellini, "Iconografia Francescana nei
Secoli XIII e XIV," in Francesco d’Assisi: Storia e Arte, ed.
Carlo Pirovano (Milan: Electa, 1982), p. 94.

62

.bruciante e penetrante, voce robusta, dolce, chiara
e sonora, denti uniti, uguali e bianchi, labbra
piccole e sottili, barba nera e rara, spalle
dritte, mani scarne, dita lunghe, unghie sporgenti,
gambe snelle, piedi piccoli, pelle delicata,.magro,
veste ruvida, sonno brevissimo, mano
generosissima.112

By midcentury, depictions of St. Francis typically included
reference to these characteristics.113
The iconographical innovation of shaving St. Francis can

1“ He was trying to

be directly attributed to Pope Nicholas.
upgrade the saint’s image. Late thirteenth—century fashion
demanded that men be clean-shaven. Wearing a beard had
negative connotations and was harshly criticized.11$ Men
with beards were considered "burberi," or rough people of
discourteous bearing.116 Nicholas, who had fostered. the

Conventual attitude at nearly every opportunity, now felt it

permissible to make an iconographical change. Even though his

 

‘42 Celano, Vita.Prima, chap. 29, sect. 83. Translation:

Rather small of stature; head regular and round; an oval and
lengthy face; small, flat forehead; black eyes, of average
size and complete simplicity; hair very dark; straight
eyebrows; a just nose, thin and straight; ears straight but
small; flat temples; a mild tongue, burning and penetrating;
robust voice, sweet, clear, and sonorous; compact teeth, even
and white; small, thin lips; an exceptional black beard;
straight shoulders; worn hands; long fingers; jutting
fingernails; skinny legs; small feet; delicate skin; a thin
man of coarse clothing who slept very little and had a most
generous hand. (The translation and italics therein are my
own.)

Scarpellini, p. 94
Bellosi, La Pecora..., p. 27.
“5 Ibid., p. 4.

1” Ibid.

63
depiction did not coincide with historical record, Nicholas
knew the Franciscan Order would be hampered in its quest for
prestige with such a rough image of its founding saint.
Nicholas left the less important Anthony of Padua bearded, but
he ordered Francis shaved.

At the Lateran, Nicholas had himself represented next to
his beloved Francis. Not only is Nicholas positioned closest
to the saint, but he looks strikingly like him in body
position and countenance. Did Nicholas really bear such a
close resemblance to his spiritual model? It is unlikely. The
concept of realistic portraiture in the Middle Ages was less
important than symbolic impact. Clearly, Nicholas was here
casting himself in the role of St. Francis.

A similar situation occurs at Santa Maria Maggiore.
Again, a portrait of Nicholas is included, this time separated
from Francis in order to allow the pope to appear, this time
at less than half-size scale, just to the right of the central
Coronation scene. The postures of Nicholas and his mentor
remain relatively independent of one another; but, in
imitation of St. Francis, Nicholas, too, appears clean-shaven,
quite unlike his portrait at St. John’s. Again, he is
portraying himself as a little St. Francis. What brings the
argument to rest in a striking fashion is the fact that the

hands of Pope Nicholas’s likeness actually bear what Clough

64

claims to be the stigmata,117 the wounds of Christ borne upon
Francis at Mount La Verna118 in 1224119 (Figure 6). The
other similarities are understandable, as perhaps they could
be attributed to an active ego or even to the stylistic
tendencies of the artist. But the inclusion of the stigmata,
which Nicholas certainly never suffered, is a blatant sign of
his assumption of a share in Francis’s role as sustainer of
the Church.

That is, it is blatant if the mosaic picture truly was
intended to represent "the stigmata on the hands“:20 as
Clough. believes. It must be admitted that it closely
resembles the stigmata shown on Francis’s body nearby, and
especially like the marks on the saint’s feet at St. John
Lateran.

Francis’s stigmata is represented. by a simple dot;
Nicholas’s is a dot with a small circle around it. I question
whether Nicholas could have dared to specify inclusion of the
stigmata in his portrait. Could he, the man who would have
been happier as cook than as cardinal, really have changed

this drastically? Certainly it is possible, but the question

 

1” Cecil H. Clough, "Papa Niccolo IV nella Sua
Iconografia," in Niccolo IV: Uh Pontificato tra Oriente ed
Occidente, ed. Enrico Menesto (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di
Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1991), p. 187.

1” Bonaventura, Legenda Maior, chap. l3, sect. 2.

“9 Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady, eds.,
Francis and Clare: The complete Wbrks (New York: Paulist
Press, 1982), p. 8.

120

Clough, p. 188.

65

 

Figure 6. Papal statue attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio

66
remains a relevant one. Nicholas appears to have been quite
a pious man, but little serious work has actually been devoted
to understanding his spirituality.121

Could the "stigmata" really have been a representation of
a jewel embedded in a papal glove? Nicholas definitely wears
gloves in his portrait at the Lateran basilica; the cuff is
visible at his wrist. At Santa Maria Maggiore, neither wrist
nor cuff is visible, so no gloves are readily identifiable,
unless the "jewel" is to be read as part of a glove. .A statue
in a chapel at St. John Lateran, sometimes attributed to
Arnolfo di Cambio,122 who was roughly a contemporary (c.1250
- c.1301) of Nicholas’s, shows a papal figure wearing a glove
with a prominent round gem surrounded by a small circle of
woven embroidery (Figure 7). Perhaps it is this that Torriti
intended to show on Nicholas’s hand.

Clearly, though, regardless of the patron’s or artist’s
intent, the lack of any other evidence of a glove, such as the
inclusion of wrinkles or of a cuff, indeed.makes the mark read
like a stigmatization, especially when St. Francis, only two
saints to the left, bears a similar stance and mark. Also,
Nicholas wears a papal ring. Unless it is worn over the

gloved finger, it, too, implies flesh beneath it. Nicholas

 

1“ Claudio Leonardi, "Niccolo IV e la Fine della Chiesa

Medievale," in Niccolo IV: Un Pontificato tra Oriente ed
Occidente, ed. Enrico Menesto (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di
Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1991), p. 224.

122

Clough, p. 188.

67

 

Figure 7. Santa Maria Maggiore: detail of Pope Nicholas IV

68

123 and

may have been aware of the impression the image made,
perhaps he was favorably disposed.

The Coronation scene featured in the center of the apse
was a relatively new subject, Many factors contributed to the
rise of the cult of the Virgin in the thirteenth century. One
of those was the special devotion to Mary held by Francis and
the Franciscans. One of Franciscanism’s distinguishing
characteristics was its Christocentrism: Franciscans believed
man’s destiny was centered on and found its meaning in Jesus
Christ. Because the Blessed Virgin had brought Christ into
the world by God’s will, the Franciscans held her, too, in

1“ St. Francis had desired that a Mass be said

great esteem.
in ‘the ‘Virgin’s honor' every Saturday.125 The Franciscan
Order had approved the Feast of the Conception of Mary by the
mid-12603, and in 1269, the Franciscan General Chapter
officially accepted the Feast of the Virgin of the Snow,126
a feast associated specifically with the church of Santa.Maria
Maggiore. It seems quite likely that some of the Marian

iconography in the apse mosaic emerged from.the sermons of two

Franciscans associated with Pope Nicholas, St. Bonaventura and

 

”3 Although he died in 1292, before the mosaic was
completed by the Colonna family in about 1295. Gardner notes,
though ("Pope Nicholas IV...," p. 5), that there is no reason
to doubt that the main lines of the mosaic program were
already established by the time of Nicholas’s death and that
the mosaic was faithfully completed by the Colonna.

1“ McDevitt, p. 38.
125

Huber, p. 159.

1" Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 452.

69
Matteo d’Acquasparta.

Bonaventura (who wrote the official Vita of St. Francis)
was minister general of the Friars Minor immediately before
Girolamo d’Ascoli. He was greatly devoted to the Virgin and
preached a sermon127 promoting the idea that Mary was assumed
into heaven and crowned. at a time when belief in the
Assumption was not yet required by official Church doctrine.

Franciscan thought perpetuated this idea, and it was
voiced again by Matteo d’Acquasparta, minister general of the
Order from 1287 to 1289. Nicholas supported him as minister
and later made him a cardinal,128 and Matteo went on to have
a strong influence on Franciscan spirituality. Dante, in his
"Lament for the Decline of the Franciscan Order" in the
Paradiso, mentioned him, and Ciardi, in his notes, points out
that significant changes occurred under his rule.129

Both Bonaventura and Matteo, along with other Franciscans
(such as Fra Ubertino da Casale, also mentioned by Dante),
promoted.the belief’in.a direct progression of the‘Virgin from
Dormition to Assumption to Coronation.13° At Santa Maria
Maggiore, the artist, the Franciscan Torriti, went so far as

to place the Dormition scene centrally rather than in the

 

127

See page 53.

”8 R. Ritzler, "I Cardinali e i Papi dei Frati Minori
Conventuali," Miscellania Francescana, Vol. 71 (1971), p. 16.

1” Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, trans. John Ciardi
(London: iNew England.Library Limited, 1970). p. 147, notes by
Ciardi concerning Canticle XII, Verses 112 ff.

1” Gardner, "Pope Nicholas IV...," p. 10-

70
chronological manner on the far right (as Cavallini did at
Santa Maria in Trastevere) in order to represent a vertical
progression of death, assumption (which is implied by the
mosaic inscription which refers to "MARIA VIRGO ASSVMPTAE"131),
and crowning; These three events were commemorated. on
successive feast days, namely August 15th, 16th, and 17th, by

”2 and by creating a linear visual

some communities,
succession of these events in his apse mosaic, Nicholas lent
support to the Franciscan belief in the Assumption which
glorified the Virgin, one of the most important saints of the
Franciscans. As Gardner states, in the mosaic program, the
Assumption of Mary "was unequivocally implied...Nicholas’s
role in giving visual currency to a doctrinal theme still in
a delicate process of crystallization was of great

importance."133 Nicholas once more was displaying his total

devotion to and emulation of his Order’s founding saint.

 

131

Henkels, p. 141.

132 Frederick G. Holweck, "Assumption of the Virgin,"
Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: The Gilmary Society, 1913),

vol. 2, p. 6.

1” Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 453.

Chapter Six: Ascoli Piceno and the Cope

Even when Nicholas was elevated to the demanding position of
‘the papacy, he did not forget Ascoli Piceno, his place of
birth. There were several reasons for this, not the least of
which was his genuine concern for the needs of his
townspeople. In Ascoli, pursuit of his papal policies,
artistic and otherwise, was intensified by hometown loyalty
and surely by his own fond memories of home and his early days
as a Franciscan.

Nicholas had watched the Franciscan Order grow in Ascoli
Piceno almost from its inception, By the time he became pope,
Ascoli had had a strong Franciscan presence for over seventy
years. Nicholas, who probably had known personally some of
St. Francis’s first.Ascoli recruits, genuinely cared.about the
spiritual welfare of the townsfolk who first introduced.him to
Franciscanism, .As a citizen, a Franciscan, a one-time
minister general of all Franciscans, and now as the first
Franciscan pope, Nicholas took a very personal interest in Le
Marche region, and in Ascoli Piceno in particular.

In a more pragmatic vein, it is worth noting that Ascoli
Piceno’s region, Le Marche, was not necessarily a stable ally

of the papacy. Even his own Ascoli was capable of giving

71

72
Nicholas trouble.13‘ Historically, many towns in Le Marche
were known to be particularly independent and resentful of

135

papal interference. Problems persisted into midcentury

and beyond before terms were reached with papal

authorities.136

Even then, papal relations were not always
smooth.

Another impetus for targeting Le Marche for papal
attention was the fact that St. Francis had been quite active
in the region. Inn fact, Ascoli Piceno’s citizens had had
their own religious experience, administered directly by the
Order’s founder. In 1215, a young and fervent Francis came to
Ascoli and inspired the inhabitantsf” Thirty likeminded
youths founded the first small Franciscan monasteries in the
area.

Soon, these friars began to clamor for a home within the
walls. They wanted a more practical location, one from which
it would be easier to serve the people. They also wanted to
build a better facility in a more strategic location.138

Alexander IV (1254-1261) approved the move in 1257, but

immediately there sprang up strong resentment and resistance

 

1“ Mann, p. 190.

135

Waley, p. 87.
1“ Ibid., p. 155.

1“ Refer to p. 4.

1” Elia Calilli Nardinocchi, "Insediamenti degli Ordini

Mendicanti in Ascoli Piceno, " Picenum Seraphicum (1979-80) , p.
217.

73

from the secular clergy already living within Ascoli’s walls.
If the Franciscans moved into the urban area, they would
doubtlessly become enmeshed in the religious and
administrative patterns of the town. The powers and duties
that had once belonged solely to Ascoli’s secular priests
would in part shift to the newcomers. Preeminence and
prestige that were once theirs alone would be divided. There
were also financial considerations: having another competitor
for the townspeople’s charities would lessen revenues.139

The civil authorities joined the religious leaders in
their opposition to the Franciscans’ transfer into town. In
fact, resistance was so severe that Pope Alexander IV came to
the Franciscans’ defense. Ina a letter dated December 13,
1257, he threatened to excommunicate certain Ascolani and to
deprive the city of Church privileges if the Captain of the
People, the Council of the Elders, or anyone else dared to
impede the friars in their right to occupy their designated
spot inside Ascoli Piceno’s boundaries.“°

Tensions were still present when Nicholas (then Girolamo)
was in his early 303, in 1258, at which time the Franciscans
were ready to begin building a new church. .An obstinate local
bishop refused.to consecrate the first stone. .Again Alexander
IV was called on to defend the friars, which he did, blessing

the stone himself and sending a more accommodating bishop to

 

1” Ibid., p. 218.

1“ Ibid, p. 219.

74
deliver it.141
Shifts in Le Marche’s medieval religious structure were
closely followed and often politically involved, sometimes
causing religious centers to wax or wane in importance. For
example, in the 12003, venice was replaced by Padua as a major
Franciscan center, and Ascoli itself was rivaling Ancona in
importance.142
Nicholas, bearing the knowledge of the troubles the
Franciscans had experienced in Ascoli Piceno, must have felt
protective of the site at which he had experienced his first
calling to the spiritual life. His loyalty to his hometown
revealed itself in several different ways. First, Nicholas
applied.himself to the task of stabilizing.Ascoli Piceno. The
town’s secular heads had used their positions of leadership to
take an antagonistic stance towards the Church; They had.even
destroyed roads that led to monastic sites and forbidden the
Ascolani to assist the religious orders in rebuilding.143
Nicholas immediately took steps to restore proper respect
for Church property and activities and to assert his own
authority as the Church’s head. Early in his pontificate, he

became the rector of the city’s auctoritate apostolica, a

 

1“ Ibid.

1” Luigi Pelligrini, Insediamenti Francescani

nell’Italia del Duecento (Rome: Laurentianum, 1984), p. 160.

1“ Giuseppe Bartocci, "Il Monastero di Sant’Angelo e il
Comune di Ascoli (1250-1300)," in Le Marche nei Secoli XII e
XIII, Atti del VI Convegno del Centro di Studi Storici
MacerateSi (Parma: Centro di Studi Storici Maceratesi, 1972),
p. 75.

75

position which was later confirmed for life. He also ordered
a provincial rector to go directly to Ascoli to investigate
the situation and to demand that city officials appear before
him to explain their behavior.144 This rector remained in
Ascoli more than one month trying to sort out the
situation.145

Nicholas issued several bulls forcing the Ascolani to

face up to fines, debts, and penalties,146

yet he wrote to
the local rector to ask that the fines imposed be reduced.“7
He also gave the city papal privilege, exempting its citizens
from the jurisdiction of the subprovincial courts of Le
Marche.”8 This was an important indication of his desire to
emphasize papal authority in an area dominated by questionable
secular leaders.

Beyond these political "gifts, " Nicholas demonstrated his
loyalty with material blessings as well, making contributions

of art to the city’s churches.”9 The gifts included pieces

of metalwork, ecclesiastical embroidery, and.a panel painting

 

1“ Ibid.

1” Waley, p. 212.

1“ Langlois, ed., nos. 7087-8, 7093: 7336-

147

Waley, p. 213.
“:3 For Nicholas’s dealings with Ascoli Piceno, see
LanglOis’s Les Registres, nos. 830, 2413, 6961-5, 6982, 6995,

$232, 7025, 7030, 7036-7, 7082-3, 7098-7100, 7122, 7149, and

1” Ibid., nos. 7101 and 7122.

76
of the Madonna, though this last was destroyed by fire in
1853.150

The ecclesiastical embroidery, however, survives (Figures
8a and 8b). Nicholas did not commission it or choose any of
its iconography, but the piece was so well attuned to his own
thinking and goals that he chose to present it as a gift to
the cathedral of Ascoli. In a letter of July 28, 1288,151 he
gave the cope to Ascoli, expressly forbidding its sale or
removal from the cathedral, where it was his wish that it
should remain forever.

The elaborately woven cope is one of the finest examples
of opera anglicanum in existence today, perhaps the more
famous for its bizarre and unresolved theft.152 The original
intent of its iconography and the political and religious
circumstances that surrounded its creation have been

thoroughly examined by others.153 What proves interesting

 

1” Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 439.
”1 May Morris, "Opus Anglicanum Part II: The Ascoli
Cope," Burlington Magazine, 6 (1905), p. 440.

1” It disappeared from Ascoli’s cathedral in 1902, only
to resurface two years later at an English textiles
exhibition. Investigation showed the owner to be American
business magnate J.P. Morgan. An arrest, a cryptic note, and
a suicide all ensued, but the proceedings became irrelevant
when Morgan returned the cope to Italy in 1904. For the story
as reported by the New York Times, see these articles, all
from 1904: Aug. 21, p.1; Sept. 3, p. 7; Oct. 2, p. 4; Oct.
16, p. 12; and Nov. 19, p. 1.

”3 For example, see Susan Kyser’s Figuring
Reconciliation: The Embroidered Cope at Ascoli Piceno, Pope
féement IV, and the English, M.A. thesis, Syracuse University,

89.

77

moan puma

Homoo fiHooms

o5.

.Mm ousmwm

 

 

78

open nomflw

"UQOU

aaooma wee

om oquwm

 

79

here is an examination of the cope’s role in its new context,
that of a finished object resting in the papal treasury and
selected by Nicholas for presentation to the cathedral of his
native town. Given his explicit instructions that it not be
loaned or disposed of, one wonders what the cope meant to
Nicholas, not its commissioner, but reigning pope in pursuit
of a distinctly Franciscan policy. What did it represent to
him, what message did he hope to promote, and how did it
relate to Franciscanism?

As a piece chosen to play a part in Nicholas’s policy to
bolster the reputation of Rome as the central religious power,
the cope is unequaled. The vestment propounds the authority
of the Roman papacy in every aspect. Iconographically, the
cope’s nineteen tondi are divided into four series. The first
is a central, vertical column of three tondi. The bottom
tondo depicts a Madonna and Child; the central one, Christ
crucified; and the topmost, Christ as Pantocrator (Figure 9).
The column as a whole is the anchor that supports the pro-
papacy message of the surrounding tondi. The meaning is clear
(it also, it should be noted, perfectly corresponds with
Franciscan beliefs): Mary’s intervention brings the faithful
to Jesus, who died for mankind’s sins and rose again to stand
in judgment of all, granting the faithful their salvation.
God had chosen the popes to surround Him and continue His
Church and. to provide the channels necessary to obtain

salvation.

The rest of the cope’s tondi are organized in roughly

80

uoumuooucmm

“Hflmuoo omov HHoomd

.m ousmfih

 

81

chronological order in three horizontal bands. The first
band, that closest to the Christ Pantocrator, consists of six
tondi containing early popes all associated with martyrial
legends. They are Giovanni, Marcellus, Peter, Clement,
Stephen, and Fabianus. Flanking the vertical column, they,
like the crucified Christ at center, are all seen at the
moment of their martyrdoms. Like Him, they have all been
called to make the supreme sacrifice, to die for the sake of
establishing Christ’s Church on earth.

Peter’s tondo is located next to that of the Pantocrator.
Placing Peter at the right of the judging Christ recalls the
biblical passage from Matthew 16:18-19: "I tell you, you are
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the
powers of hell will not prevail against it. I give you the
keys to the Kingdom of Heaven." Peter is seen as a
continuation of God’s will carried on through the person of
the pope.

The Church’s second pope takes the flanking position on
Christ’s other side, opposite Peter. Clement was in reality
the forth pope, but common legend placed him second and held
that Peter invested Clement with his papal powers with his
dying breath, and "thus the right of succession [as head of
the Church] of St. Peter and the popes of Rome came to be

justified."154 St. Jerome, Eusebius, and Origen all equated

 

1“ Rosalia Bonito Fanelli, ed., Il Piviale Duecentesco

di Ascoli Piceno, (Ascoli Piceno: Cassa di Risparmio di
Ascoli Piceno, 1990), p. 62.

82
this Clement with the one mentioned by St. Paul in Philippians
4:3, and it was Clement who wrote the "First Epistle of
Clement," an important document that traced the popes back to
Jesus and defended the idea that Christ inaugurated the office
of the papacy.155

All popes depicted in this band were known for their
struggles to affirm the Roman Church. Pope Stephen helped to
stabilize the early Roman papacy, defending the papal lineage
based on the Gospel of Matthew. Fabianus (Figure 10) and
Marcellus further organized the Church, inventing a system no
longer modeled after Augustus’s civic regional divisions, and
therefore displaying the superiority'of'divine over civic law.

The second horizontal band holds six more popes, all
doctors or confessors: Leo, Hillarius, Silvester, Gregorius,
Lucius, and Anastasius. Whereas the first band shows popes
laboring and dying to establish“ the Church, this band
concentrates on displaying its administrative and judicial
aspects.

Hillarius and Leo worked throughout their reigns to
consolidate and bolster the papal office. Gregorius was the
first to call the pope the "servant of the servants of God,"
which later became an official title of the office.156

Anastasius, Lucius, and Leo were great combatants of heresy.

 

1“ For further information and sources for the lives of

these saints, see Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater, eds.,
Butler’s Lives of the Saints, 4 vols., (New York: P.J. Kenedy
& Sons, 1956).

1“ Joyce, p. 270; Fanelli, p. 76.

83

 

Pope St. Fabianus

Ascoli Cope detail

Figure 10.

84

Pope St. Silvester, pictured at left center, was the
pontiff during Constantine’s reign, and thus at the time when
Christianity first became the official religion of the State.
According to legend, Constantine gave Silvester a document
known as the Donation of Constantine, which conferred on the
popes "primacy in ecclesiastical patriarchates and temporal
dominion over Rome."157 Constantine also offered him the
imperial crown, but Silvester, to demonstrate the subordinate
position of temporal power to papal authority (and surely it
was well for Nicholas to remind the Ascolani of this idea),
declined.158

The third horizontal band contains only four popes;
Clement, for whom the cope was probably commissioned, and
three others, all from the thirteenth century: Alexander IV,
Urban IV, and Innocent IV, Each one played an active part in
proclaiming the authority of the Church. .Alexander attempted
to reassert papal power in Sicily; Innocent proclaimed the
papal office supreme and beyond the jurisdiction of earthly
rulers. Urban recovered control of many papal territories
that had been lost.

The cope employs no subtlety in its exaltation of the
role played by the popes as vicars of Christ; in fact, the

garment’s theme is entirely papal. Sixteen of its nineteen

 

”7 John N. Davidson Kelly, OxfOrd Dictionary of Popes

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 28 and see also
L. Duchesne, ed., Liber Pontificalis, 2nd ed. (Paris: E. De
Boccard, 1955), vol. 1, pp. 170-201 and Fanelli, p. 74.

1“ Fanelli, p. 73.

85

tondi represent popes, and all in a way that emphasizes their
divinely approved status as leaders of the Church, The cope’s
iconography undertakes what amounts to a justification of the
papal office, beginning with Peter and emphasizing the direct
progression of spiritual authority from Jesus Christ, its
source. It glorifies the Church in its moments of
tribulation, demonstrating the wisdom and courage of the popes
in the face of dissent and disaster, thereby emphasizing the
primacy of Rome as head of the Church. These alone are
reasons enough for its selection by Nicholas. Bestowing the
cope upon Ascoli Piceno’s cathedral served to focus importance
on the role the native son had now obtained. Such exaltation
of the papal office and of its divine initiation was well in
line with Nicholas’s propagandistic needs.

But there were Franciscan implications in the
iconography, too. Nicholas, surely aware of them, intended
that the cope bear a Franciscan message and emphasized his
apparent intention by sending Lamberto di Ripatransone, a
Franciscan, to deliver it.

Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto states that the cope had
originally been destined for the church of St. John Lateran in
Rome.159 She bases her argument on the fact that it is
likely that a cope covered with papal imagery was meant for a

papal church, pointing out the similarity between the head of

 

1” Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, "Il Piviale

e Niccolo IV," in 11 Piviale Duecentesco di Ascoli Piceno,
ed., Rosalia Bonito Fanelli (Ascoli Piceno: Cassa di
Risparmio di Ascoli Piceno, 1990), p. 23.

86

Christ in the church’s apse mosaic and.the same subject in the
cope. They are indeed similar, and if her hypothesis is
correct, it raises an important Franciscan connection:
choosing a gift intended for the Lateran to give to Ascoli
created a direct link among the popes’ church, Nicholas,
Ascoli Piceno, and the dream of Innocent III, in which Francis
sustains the Church. Nicholas had specifically cited the
dream in his inscription at St. John Lateran, and he always
kept in mind the similarity of Francis’s role as sustainer to
the role of the pope.

An essential part of the papacy was to spread the word of
God, often through missions. One of the central themes of
Franciscanism was the concept of mission. Francis himself was
the first Franciscan ndssionary. :n: 1212, he sailed from
Ancona, a port very near Ascoli, for Syria to convert the
infidel, though he only got as far as Dalmatia (a place, it
will be remembered, where Nicholas once worked).

Francis believed in accepting and even embracing
martyrdom if necessary, affirming that "you should not be
afraid of...those who kill the body but cannot do more than
this" (Matthew 10:28). The early Franciscan concept of
mission embraced a "desire for martyrdom“1‘° that led the
Friars Minor to a compulsion for missionary activity in far

away, even hostile, lands. Nicholas himself had often been

 

1“’ Randolph.E. Daniel, The.Franciscan Concept of Mission

in the High.Middle Ages (Lexington: The University Press of
Kentucky, 1975), p. 41.

87
called on for missionary duties. He had been especially
concerned with missions to Constantinople, where he had once
succeeded in reuniting the Catholic Church--only to see it
split again a short time later. But the quest to mend the
rift was not one he had forgotten. As Gardner puts it, "Union
was in his bones."161

In the Ascoli cope, that spirit is reflected by the high
proportion of popes present who were themselves involved with
Constantinople. IPope Giovanni, the first pontiff to travel to
that Eastern land, was martyred. there for his trouble.
Urbanus was widely experienced as a papal legate before taking
Peter’s chair, as was Girolamo. He was pope when
Constantinople fell to Paleologus (with whom Girolamo later
dealt) in 1261. Urbanus, too, tried without success to
restore Constantinople’s Latin empire. Anastasius as well
sought to unite East with West, Clement continued
correspondence with Paleologus, and Hillarius protested
against the condemnation of a Constantinian bishop.

Saints Fabianus and Silvester held a different
significance for Nicholas. Fabianus was elected pope, despite
the fact that he was a layman, when the cardinal electorate
saw a dove alight above his head and interpreted it as a
symbol from God revealing his special calling. Silvester
(who, according to legend, converted Constantine to

Christianity) was the pontiff conducting the dedicatory Mass

 

1“ Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 453-

88
at St. John Lateran at the moment the approving head of Christ
miraculously appeared in the apse. Both these men relate to
Nicholas’s preoccupation with divine symbols of approval of
both Rome and pope.

Gregorius was an important missionary, playing a major
role in converting England to Christianity. But as Fanelli
points out, "often one finds that the same name in the cope
can be interpreted as a reference to various popes."162 IHere
the presence of a Gregorius brings to mind.the Gregory who was
much closer to Nicholas in time-~Gregory IX (1227-1241). It
was he who canonized Francis of Assisi and who, in 1228, laid
the foundation stone for the basilica that would hold the new
saint’s body.

Alexander IV was directly connected to Ascoli Piceno. It
was he who approved the transfer of the friars to within
Ascoli’s walls, blessing the first stone of their new
church.“” He had been a strong supporter of the Franciscans
as cardinal-protector of the Order under Innocent IV. As
pope, he not only favored.the Franciscans at the University of

Paris when secular clergy challenged their teachings,”‘

 

“2 Fanelli, ed. p. 69. Translation: often one finds
that the same name in the cope can be interpreted as a
reference to various popes. (The translation is mine.)

163

See page 73.

”4 Kelly, p. 194.

89
but he canonized St. Clare of Assisi, a contemporary and close
friend of St. Francis and the third major saint of the

Franciscan Order.

Chapter Seven: Assisi and the Chalice

In an examination of Nicholas’s role as Franciscan and art
patron, a discussion of Assisi cannot be omitted, .As the home
of the mother church of the Franciscan Order, the basilica of
San Francesco, Assisi was of the utmost importance to the
Franciscans. Yet the town had not immediately become renowned
as the "sanctuary city of Umbria."165 Widespread fame did
not come until around midcentury. The basilica of San
Francesco, built to house the saint’s remains, was intended
from its inception to be a major pilgrimage destination. A
grandiose church--despite the wishes of Francis himself--would
help secure Assisi’s position as an important historical and
religious center.

Construction of the church was begun in 1228, but the
building process was sporadic and difficult. In the 12403,
Innocent IV (1243-1247) authorized the collection of charities
for the building’s completion. The dedication ceremony was
held at last in 1253, though the structure still had not been
finished, In 1266, another papal decree was issued, this time

by Clement IV (1265-1268), to allow for the collection of

 

”5 Roberto Rusconi, "Dal Sepolcro di Francesco
all’Indulgenza della Porziuncola," in San Francesco d’Assisi:
Storia e Arte, ed. Carlo Pirovano (Milan: Electa, 1982), p.
159.

90

91
funds to complete and decorate the church.

Pope Nicholas III (1277-1280), a great friend to the
Franciscans, had been very interested in seeing the Assisi
church completed. But in 1279, Bonagrazia da Persiceto was
elected minister general of the Franciscans. As Girolamo’s
successor, he was tremendously busy, attending to the many
matters the overburdened Girolamo had not seen to. Bonagrazia
was soon engaged in dealing with the conflicts within the
Order and with curbing the bitter resentments that existed
between Spirituals and Conventuals. unifying the brethren
into a single cohesive Order became his main goal,“"6 and it
would seem he had no time or inclination to push for progress
on work at Assisi.

In the year following Bonagrazia’s election came the
death of Nicholas III, and his passing was no small loss to
the Franciscans. As the Order’s cardinal protector, he had
been much involved with the friars and was an avid Franciscan
supporter. The loss of the positive influence Nicholas III
provided at the papal level was perhaps the main reason for
the halt in work at Assisi.

The election of Raymond Geoffrey to the position of
minister general of the Friars Minor in 1289 presented yet
another difficulty: Geoffrey was a Spiritual, and, as such,
was not supportive of lavish artistic endeavors like the one

underway at Assisi.

 

166

Huber, p. 169.

92

Perhaps it was for this reason that Nicholas IV opposed
Geoffrey’s election.167 When he had been minister general,
Girolamo had recognized the importance of relaxing the Order’s
stance on poverty in order to establish a more realistic
policy that would allow for growth and order, not to mention
an art that would make possible the propagation and
perpetuation of the Order. Geoffrey, as‘a Spiritual, would
try to lead the Order in precisely the direction that Girolamo
would not have wanted. By 1288, the year in which Nicholas
became pope, anpapal funding for the basilica had.been issued
for twenty years.168

The Assisians had good reason to take new hope upon
Nicholas’s succession to the papacy. They knew there were
several reasons for their town to receive papal favor.
Nicholas had spent some time in Assisi in his early years
training for the Franciscan life. He was clearly devoted to
the saint. He had surely seen work on the church in its early
stages and doubtless took an interest in the memorial’s
construction and decor. The decoration of the upper church
must have presented an irresistible opportunity for Nicholas.
The content of the fresco cycles could influence thousands of
pilgrims, cement Francis’s reputation, and secure Assisi’s
position as an important pilgrimage center for centuries to

come. Nicholas had taken new, thoughtful approaches to all

 

1“ Mann, p. 179.

1“ John White, Art and Architecture in Italy 1250-1400

(New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1987), p. 191.

93
artistic material that dealt with his Order’s founder. How
could he not seek some control over what was to be a major
representation and glorification of his saint at the Order’s
world headquarters?

But whether Nicholas was actually involved in the Assisi
frescoes remains a disputed question. The literature on the
basilica is enormous and sometimes contradictoryu Many of the
theories concerning ‘the frescoes are Ibased on stylistic
analysis, since documentary evidence is lacking. Furthermore,
"the battle over dating is no more than a prelude to the
veritable war of attribution."169 Until decisive new
evidence is found, it seems the many theories will only be
perpetually reincarnated. In hopes of avoiding a pointless
bout on the same stalemated battlefield, only the elements
most relevant to Nicholas’s story will be examined here.

It is probable that the church’s decorative program was
executed, at least in part, during Nicholas’s papal reign.
According to Scarpellini, the date of the upper church’s
decorations is now fixed between 1290 and 1300.170 Others
give slightly different opinions. John White favors "a date

in the 12903."171 Miklos Boskovits feels that Pope Nicholas

 

1“ Ibid., p. 207.

170

Scarpellini, p. 103.

1“ White, p. 207.

94

may have been responsible for at least a part of the fresco
program,172 and Luciano Bellosi places the date between 1290
and 1292, squarely within the reign of Nicholas IV.173 The
basilica of San Francesco was under papal jurisdiction,174
and Nicholas was the first Franciscan pope. He took pains to
favor his Order: he was committed to commissioning art that
projected a calculated image of Francis. Nicholas was also
committed to honoring him in some of the most important
churches of Rome, such as St. John Lateran and Santa Maria
Maggiore.

Bellosi points out that Jacopo Torriti’s role as one of
the artists working in the upper church may not have been
coincidental.’75 Torriti, the preferred artist of Pope
Nicholas IV, was the creator of all Nicholas’s major mosaic
programs. Perhaps his work at Assisi was again at the behest
of his most important employer.

But Nicholas’s generous disposition toward the
Franciscans and the possibility of fresco dates that coincide
with his reign do not prove his patronage of the upper church

frescoes. These facts are merely circumstantial evidence.

 

1" Miklos Boskovits, "Celebrazione dell’VIII Centenario

della Nascita di San Francesco: Studi Recenti sulla Basilica
di Assisi," Arte Cristiana, vol. 7, no. 697 (1983), p. 207.

”3 Luciano Bellosi, "Decorazione della Basilica
Superiore di Assisi e la Pittura Romana di Fine Duecento," in
Roma Anno 1300 (Rome: 1980), p. 127.

1" Bellosi, La Pecora..., p. 39.

1” Bellosi, "La Barba di San Francesco...," p. 32.

95

Some clues of a more concrete nature do exist. Nicholas
is known to have granted a number of indulgences (or promises
of remission of purgatorial punishment due for sins) to those
who visited the Assisi church. The Pope also gave relics of
the "true cross" to several Umbrian convents.176

His financial support was also definite. Nicholas issued
a bull dated 15 May, 1288, only three months, therefore, after
his ascent to the pontificate. In it, Nicholas decreed that
the charity monies collected at the Assisi basilica and at
Assisi’s Porziuncola should be used for the ornamentation of
the Franciscan basilica. In his short reign, Nicholas issued
eight bulls to promote work on the church of San
Francesco?77 This is more than any of the popes who
preceded or followed him.178

Nicholas also favored the basilica of San Francesco at
Assisi with gifts of art. In fact, he made his first gifts to
Assisi only two days after his election as pope, again
demonstrating a strong inclination toward the Franciscans and
giving early indication of the degree to which their Order
would be favored by the Seat of Peter while he occupied it.

The gifts were accoutrements for the Mass: chasubles, cippi,

 

1“ Dottoressa Daniela Ferriani and Giannino Gagliardi,

personal interviews, July 29 and 30 respectively, 1992.

1" Robert Oertel, Early’ Italian Painting' to 1400
(London: Thames & Hudson, 1966), p. 51.

1" Bellosi, La Pecora..., p. 28.

96

candelabras, a pix.179 Also included was a reliquary of
Sant’Andrea. This piece was not commissioned by Nicholas, but
was created. before he became pope and for a different
destination. m° He now rerouted the work to the Franciscan
church at Assisi. Three months later, with the bull of 13
May, 1288, he gave yet more gifts: silver vases, vestments of
colored silk, and a sum of money "come pegno del passato e del
futuro affetto."181 Among his gifts to Assisi was also a
chalice by the Sienese metalsmith Guccio di Mannaia.

Nicholas’s commitment to the basilica is thus well
documented. It is tempting to believe he also had a hand in
the fresco cycles, but whether this is so and to what degree
he may have participated are questions that remain to be
answered and are outside the scope of this paper. Let us
examine an article that was definitely created for Nicholas,
the chalice of the Sienese Guccio di Mannaia (Figure 11).

St. Francis "had a horror of numerous or exquisite
utensils."“” This opinion did not make the task of adorning
Franciscan churches an easy one for the friars, and the Order
members grappled with their founder’s severe attitude. It

became necessary to issue decrees defining the number and type

 

n9 Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, "La Committenza...," p.

195.

1“ See page 22 for a brief discussion.

1“ Bellosi, La Pecora..., pp. 28-29. Translation: as
a testimonial to the past and to future effect. (The
translation is mine.)

1” Karrer, p. 69.

97

 

Figure 11. Chalice of Nicholas IV

98
of ecclesiastical items to be permitted. The General Chapter
held in 1260 took pains to lay down specific rules on this
subject; for example, the number of chalices could not exceed
one per altar plus one more for the convent. The Chapter even
gave specifications for weight and mandated a technique of
plain workmanship.183

This conference was held during Nicholas’s adulthood, so
it is obvious that he knew of the constraints mandated by his
Order. He chose to ignore such legislation in the interests
of furthering his own intentions. In commissioning the
chalice by Mannaia, Nicholas showed himself yet again to be
squarely amongst the new, more liberal Franciscans. Nicholas
consistently used the most precious and costly materials
available in his artistic commissions: silverwork, mosaic
tile, gold weavings. Francis would have opposed this chalice
for that reason alone. It was sumptuous, made of priceless
materials, exquisitely crafted (and signed) by Guccio. It was
also the first example of translucent enamelware.

Nicholas’s act of creating a fine cup, despite the
Order’s cautions against such luxuries, did not simply reflect
a laxness overtaking the strict Franciscan spirit; rather, it
represented a systematic effort on his part to loosen the
bonds of Franciscan poverty. Only this would allow for the
creation of a Franciscan iconography that would promote the

spread and perpetuation of his Order and the beginning of an

 

183

Hueck, p. 168.

99
artistic heritage that was Franciscan.

The chalice made a fine contribution toward a body of
Franciscan work, It was a very visible showpiece, meant to be
used on the high altar, just above Francis’s mortal remains.
It was as new in style as Francis was among the saints. Its
cup is conical, rather than nearly hemispherical, as had.been
usual for thirteenth-century chalices, and the new smalting
technique allowed for pictorial effects.184

Nicholas and Guccio exploited this new enameling
technique to the fullest. The lower portion of the chalice is
based on an octagonal division. Eight tiny lobes holding
angels support the base of the cup itself. Below them are
eight small depictions of animals and evangelical symbols. A
central ball-like shape separates the cup from the base. On
it, a blessing Christ presides as risen head of the Church
over Peter, His first-selected pope, and other apostles.

Such an iconographical program is fairly typical of
medieval chalices.185 It is in the smalts of the base that
the unique approach of Nicholas is revealed. Here, the
iconographical pattern becomes, in effect, a summation of his
Franciscan beliefs and the great faith.he had in the role they
must play for the salvation of men and of the Church. Here,
he beautifully integrated his Franciscan message into the

Church’s theme of universal salvation and power.

 

1“ Hueck, p. 170.

1“ Ibid., p. 171.

100

 

ommo mo Hamuoo ">H mmHonoflz mo woeamso .NH owsmflm

 

101

The base, too, contains eight smalts (Figure 12). It
crucified. Christ anchors the eight. He represents the
sacrifice of the Mass and recalls the spilled blood that the
chalice, in the form of transformed wine, was designed to
hold. In His suffering, He is flanked by the Blessed Virgin
and St. John.

Directly across the circular base from the Crucifixion
scene is a representation of the Madonna and Child. The
Virgin, in her role as the Lord’s handmaiden, brought about
the Incarnation that made possible Christ’s sacrifice which
bought the salvation of souls. This medallion, in its
recollection of the Incarnation, emphasizes the central theme
of the Mass.

Equidistant between the Madonna and Child and the
Crucifixion medallions is the smalted image of St. Francis of
Assisi. He is seen at the moment of his stigmatization, and,
in his emotion, he turns toward the cross. Once again, the
wounds of Christ recall the sacrifice of the Mass and the
blood of Christ to be contained in the chalice. They also
recall Francis’s direct and close communication with Jesus,
indeed, his status as an alter Christus figure. And his
position halfway between the Madonna--a figure representative
of the entire Church and a prime intercessor--and the
crucified Christ gives him a most prominent place on the path
to salvation. He is conceived of here as one of the Church’s
sustainers, even as he was described in the dream of Innocent

III that Nicholas had so taken to heart.

102

On Francis’s left is St. Anthony of Padua, the second
saint of the Franciscan Order, who brought the Franciscan
message to many and who instituted desert monasticism.
Opposite St. Francislis the third.Franciscan saint, St. Clare.
She is seen holding a pix, which the people of Assisi knew to
be a symbol of the saving power of the Eucharist because it
referred to the story of the city’s struggle against the Holy
Roman.Emperor FrederickIEI. His armies were besieging Assisi,
and defeat seemed imminent. Clare, who was ill, had herself
carried to the city wall, armed only with.a pix containing the
Blessed Sacrament. bfiiaoulously, the threatening brigades
turned and fled.“36 It was not Clare who caused them to
retreat. She was only one woman, and a sick one at that. The
story illustrated the saving power of the Eucharist for those
on the side of the just.

Next to Clare is Nicholas himself (Figure 13), the first
Franciscan to be cast in Francis’s own role: as pope, he was
now the one charged with rebuilding God’s Church. He is here
depicted in garb that, in more ways than one, so well captures
the man and his papacy. He wears the regal and elaborate
papal crown and.a rich papal cope, under which can be seen the
Franciscan. habit with its rope of Iknots, one of ‘which,

ironically, represents his sworn commitment to poverty.

 

1“ Leggenda di Santa Chiara, sect. 21: "I Prodigi della

sua Preghiera: e in Primo Luogo i Saraceni Miracolosamente
Volti in Fuga," in Bibliteca Francescana di Milano, Fonti
Francescane, 3rd ed., (Padova: Grafiche Messaggero di S.
Antonio, 1977), p. 2413.

103

>H mmaoooaz mo Hflmuoo

">H mmaoooflz mo ooHHmou

.MH ousmflm

 

Chapter Eight: Conclusion

Nicholas’s enameled.image on the.Assisi chalice is intriguing.
It simultaneously depicts him in the garb of both ragged
Franciscan and regal pope. The juxtaposition is apt. In
fact, in a sense, it forms a neat visual summary of his papal
career.

He did indeed retain throughout his life the conviction
in Franciscan beliefs that the simple brown robe in the smalt
implies. And yet, he altered the Franciscan outlook as well,
deliberately and systematically, to such a degree that a
humble friar in a rich papal vestment no longer represented
the impossible contradiction it was barely a generation
earlier, in Francis’s day.

Nicholas’s ingenious and gradual modification of the
strict Franciscan rule of poverty was central to his interest
in promoting the Franciscan Order. What he had already begun
as minister general when he helped Nicholas III write a bull
on poverty, he furthered in the Supra Mbntem when he himself
reached the papal throne. These bulls helped make the Order
receptive to a softer stance on poverty. He backed up his
written words with actions as well. He commissioned many
works of art--generally' in the :most expensive materials

available--that were, at one time, excessive by Franciscan

104

105
standards. By papal example, he showed the Franciscans and
the world that it was possible to create Franciscan-oriented
artworks that were both pious and elaborate, all in the name
of God’s greater glory.

Not only did he patronize expensive art on a major scale,
but he was good at it. Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto put it well
when she made this statement: "Nicholas IV showed himself to
be a patron of very great sensibility and refinement. He
demonstrated that he possessed a clear vision of art and
culture on a European level. He also showed a profound
knowledge of the historic role of the Franciscan Order and of
his own person."”7

Yet, commentaries such as Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto’s are
something of a recent phenomenon. The assessment of
Nicholas’s effectiveness as pontiff has often been
negative.188

Nicholas’s stature as pope has been greatly underrated,
perhaps because a general tendency to focus on his political
success has eliminated serious consideration of his
spirituality. To concentrate on the former without
consideration of the latter is to misunderstand Nicholas. He
was, first and foremost, a spiritual leader.

As pope, Nicholas considered himself to be entrusted by

God with a spiritual mission. He. soon developed a papal

 

”7 Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, "La Committenza...," P-

199.

1“ See p. 11 for the opinions of Schiff, et. al.

106

policy that promoted spiritualism, emphasizing the union of
the Eastern and Western Churches, conversion, missions,
crusades, combat against heresy, and the promotion of peace.
To achieve these greater spiritual goods, Nicholas understood
that he had to use and to work within the earthly constraints
of his position. Thus, he recognized there was also a need
for a pragmatic side to his policy that included stabilization
of the papal office and reinforcement of the Roman See as a
central authority.

Nicholas had a profound belief in Franciscan theology,
and the components of his spiritual policy were largely
grounded in Francis’s teachings. Franciscan beliefs were
compatible with, indeed, an integral part of, his papal
mission in its spiritual as well as its pragmatic
manifestations.

Nicholas held dear the image conveyed in the dream of
Innocent III of St. Francis as sustainer or savior of the
Church. As far as Nicholas was concerned, the evidence could
have come from no higher authority: God Himself had sent the
dream to Innocent revealing the absolutely central role St.
Francis was to play in sustaining the popes and the Church
itself. In approving the Franciscan Order’s Rule, Innocent
III showed that he heeded the message of God’s revelatory
dream. Nicholas, a Franciscan himself, could do no less. It
was essential to him that Francis and his Order play a key
role in all aspects of his papal reign.

St. Francis had come to be seen almost as a second Christ

107

figure to Nicholas because of the saint’s humanness, his
accessible humility tempered with true vision and wisdom, his
miraculous powers, his stigmatization, his profession of the
Gospels, and his overwhelmingly potent spirituality. If any
one saint could revitalize the weakened Roman Church, it was
Francis. ‘Nicholas, as leader of the Western Church, knew that
he, too, was responsible for its revitalization, both
spiritual and temporal. Given the pressures of the papal
office and the depth of his devotion to his Order’s founder,
it is possible to understand why Nicholas began to draw
parallels between himself and the saint, as evidenced in his
portrait at Santa Maria Maggiore, in which Nicholas seems to
bear the stigmata.

Nicholas’s view of Francis as central to his papal goals
also served him well in his pragmatic need to strengthen the
Roman See. The Franciscans, beginning with Francis himself,
had a strong history of support for and willing subordination
to the reigning pontiff. With Nicholas’s support, the papal-
Franciscan relationship became a symbiotic one: his
"approbation and encouragement of the Franciscan Order [was]
as explicit as the role of the Order in supporting the papacy
[was] implicit."189

The use of the Franciscan Order and its theology in
implementing both his practical and spiritual agendas was an

obvious decision. For a man as deeply committed to

 

1” Gardner, "Patterns...," p. 443.

108

Franciscanism as Nicholas was, he could hardly have done
otherwise. Yet the Franciscanism of the Spirituals was ill-
suited to Nicholas’s needs because of its strict
interpretation of the vow of poverty. Nicholas attained the
papacy at a time that was difficult for the Order. The seeds
of the conflict between Spirituals and Conventuals had begun
to germinate and to create a rift among the brethren that
caused great concern and genuine anguish for many members.
Nicholas, too, struggled with the internal disruptions. He
tried to negotiate with fairness to a middle position as
minister general, but by the time he became pope, he found
that, in order to spread the Franciscan message, he needed to
align himself with the Conventuals. The Spiritual severity
went too far in curtailing one of the best means available to
him as pope of proclaiming the Franciscan message: artistic
patronage.

In the passage quoted. above from. Ciardi Dupré Dal
Poggetto, she has managed to capture no fewer than three
important points about Nicholas in a single sentence: his
refined patronage, his understanding of the role of the
Franciscan Order, and his comprehension of his own role as
pope. He was indeed. an important patron of the arts,
revitalizing the field of papal commissions that had.begun to
flag since Martin IV’s time. He showed the refinement and
sensibility'of'a man well traveled and.well educated, Indeed,
as legate he had worked in both the East and West and gave

evidence of an understanding of the arts on a broad scale.

109

His profound awareness of the historical role of his
Franciscan Order reveals itself in his choice of artistic
commissions. ‘They were invariably made with consideration for
the Franciscan content as well as for their connections with
papal political and spiritual needs. St. John Lateran, beyond
being the church of the popes, was inextricably linked to the
Franciscans by Innocent’s dream. Santa Maria Maggiore was
more than just an important Roman basilica; it also brought to
mind the fervent Franciscan devotion to the Blessed Virgin and
the Franciscan hope to foster belief in her.Assumption, Here,
Nicholas showed his sensitivity to Franciscan beliefs by his
willingness to promote the relatively new iconographical theme
of the Coronation of the Virgin and to begin a new
iconographical transformation of St. Francis from a short,
scruffy wanderer toward a more heroic representation of all
St. Francis stood for as at once the perfect contemplative and
perfect activist. Nicholas, as Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto
points out, also had an understanding of his own role as not
only pope, but as the first Franciscan to hold that office.
He understood that a generation had passed since Francis’s
day, and the Church needed.a:more modern interpretation of the
Franciscan Rule. Yet he continued to draw direct parallels
between himself and St. Francis, e.g., as at St. John Lateran
where he looks very similar to Francis, or at Santa Maria
Maggiore where he seems to bear the stigmata. This was no
accident; equating himself with St. Francis, restorer of the

Church, in a commutative sense also emphasized.his own role as

110
an earthly Christ figure, head of the Church on earth, again
reinforcing his papal position.

Nicholas sought a synthesis between Franciscanism and his
papal activities, and indeed, the Franciscans by their nature
made this an accessible goal because "The dialectic of their
lives became just that: between the obedience to the ideal of
Francesco and obedience to the Roman curia."”° iNicholas, as
both a Franciscan and.a pope, represented the intersection of
the two groups. His Franciscan devotion was so wed to his
papal policies that a near osmosis was attained between the
two. The age of Nicholas IV was a high point for the
Franciscan Order. It is largely as a result of this man’s
strong conviction in St. Francis’s validity as spiritual
mentor and sustainer of the Church that, "In the Roman Church,
between the epoch of Francesco and that of Nicholas IV, the
Church experienced a focus on Francescanism that was surely

irrepeatable."191

 

190

Leonardi, p. 225.

1” Ibid.

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