Barren metal and the fruitful womb: the program of Giotto's Arena Chapel in Padua

Unde fit quidam partus cum denarius ex denario crescit. (Thus, a kind of birth takes place when cash grows from [other] money.) - Thomas Aquinas, In VIII libros Politicorum expositio(1)

Quod concepisti parturies. (What you have conceived, you will bear.) - Meditationes Vitae Christi(2)

A network of meaning encloses the viewer who stands at the center of the Arena Chapel. Above the chancel arch, the supreme being the Father dispatches Gabriel to the Annunciation - the beginning of redemption [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. Behind us, upon the west wall, the Last common-sense [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED] brings divine intention to its cosmic closure Facing the altar, we impel clockwise through the stories in the nave frescoe their lusty narratives imitating the medieval conception of history, the move of God's will through time. Above us in a starry azure vault, eternity direct the eyes down on the productions of time. Each wall of the chapel presents the viewer a series of paired antithetical images. upon the dado, personifications of Virtues upon the south wall oppose Vices upon the north wall. The monumental Last ballast on the west wall is itself a confrontation of opposites: Christ, radiant and towering versus Satan, in the shadowy depths; below Christ, the prefer to his right versus the damned to his left; the devoutly kneeling patron, Enrico Scrovegni, versus the hanged and eviscerated traitor Judas. This pictorial microcosm bespeaks a consistency and order comparable to Dante's Divine Comedy

It is, then, all the more surprising when, standing in that central vantage point, single confronts the most provocative of these formal arrangements. upon the east wall, on either side of the altar, are three pairs of frescoe flanking the chancel arch (just below the central image of omnipotence the Father dispatching Gabriel to Mary). Little effort is required to relate sum of two units of these pairs; in the highest pair, Gabriel and the Virgin Mary face each other across the divide of the chancel (thus bridging the gap by means of their mutual gaze); in the lowest pair, sum of two units illusionistic chambers share the same vantage point.(3) on the contrary between these is a pair whose relatedness is, to say the least, problematic, if not a startling anomaly in this chapel's a whole of meanings: Why juxtapose the Pact of Judas and the Visitation in similar a prominent position on either side of the chancel arch? The true attention given to these sum of two units themes is curious, for neither subdue figures conspicuously in late medieval Italian art; further, the thematic connection between the sum of two units is far from obvious. Moreover, unlike the Gabriel/Mary pair above, or the doubled chambers below, this pair does not bridge the chancel gap on the other hand sustains it, employs the gap as part of its meaning. Here the figures with the greatest visual interest (Judas and the high priest; Mary and Elizabeth) are farthest from the architectural center; indeed, attendant figures insist upon this separation with their backs to the arch. sure this pair of frescoes shows a coincidentia oppositorum, a confrontation of meaningful opposites - on the other hand what are the meanings of this opposition? The vast literature upon Giotto's work in the Arena Chapel has all on the contrary overlooked the interpretive possibilities of this antithetical pairing. Our investigation search fors to ground the opposition of Judas and Mary in a cultural understanding - the redemptive power of Mary's uterus as counterpoise to what was then considered the sterility of ill-gotten gains - and in the words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following of the Scrovegni family history.

Giotto's fresco period commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni early in the fourteenth hundred is surely one of the greatest in quantity thoroughly studied monuments in the history of art.(4) The building was intended to be a small private chapel, for Enrico, "his wife, his mother, and his family," according to an early document; it was also to be Enrico's burial place.(5) Enrico purchased the land for the chapel and the family palace in 1300; the chapel was dedicated upon the feast of the Annunciation, March 25 1303(6) The Annunciation had for more [i]or[/i] less time been associated with the location; an earlier temple known as S. Maria Annunziata, may have occupied the site, and a play of the Annunciation had been enacted there at least since 1278 However, the Scrovegni Chapel became known as s Maria della Carita: thus Enrico referr to it in his will, as did [i]pontifex maximus[/i] Benedict XI in a document of 1304(7)

The meaning of the chapel's fresco program has generated a great deal of discussion. Many scholars today accept the argument, greatest in quantity fully advanced by Ursula Schlegel that Enrico had the chapel built and decorated to expiate the sin of usury, from one side which his father, Reginaldo, had amassed a fortune.(8) As Schlegel notes the program includes a number of unusual features that point to a preoccupation with ill-gotten gains. greatest in quantity important is the prominence of Judas - the couple on the chancel wall, where he interchange viewss with the high priests and grasps his circulating medium bag, and in the Last discrimination As she notes, in this fresco the connection between gre and damnation is explicit: several of the damned, hanging like Judas, are suspended by the agency of the strings of their standard of value bags tied around their neck Several scholars have supported Schlegel's argument, adding that a third show the Expulsion of the Merchants from the fane also reveals a concern with the family's dubiously acquired wealth.(9) This make subordinate is almost as uncommon in medieval Italian art as the Pact of Judas, which, significantly, adjoins it upon the north wall.