The frescoes of the Cappella Nuova in the Cathedral of Orvieto
have fascinated visitors from Michelangelo to Freud and Czeław
Miłosz because of their dramatic portrayal of the end of the world
and the Last Judgment. Creighton Gilbert's study draws on
previously overlooked documents to explain the commissioning of
this extraordinary cycle of paintings, begun by Fra Angelico in the
early 1400s and completed a half-century later by Luca Signorelli.
In contrast to most other art historians, who ascribe the
iconographic and formal structure of the paintings to Signorelli,
Gilbert contends that his predecessor, Fra Angelico, devised the
entire program of decoration. Gilbert also situates the cycle in
the contexts of liturgical practice, humanistic studies, and the
rich body of texts and images shaping the Renaissance conception of
the coming of the Antichrist and the world's final moments.
How Fra Angelico and Signorelli Saw the End of the World
examines every element in the Cappella Nuova's architecture and
complex decoration, which not only represents the coming of the
Antichrist, the end of the world, and the Last Judgment but also,
on a high dado, features portraits of Dante and other poets, scenes
from their texts, and sinuous grotesque ornament. Although Dante's
likeness has long been recognized, Gilbert is the first scholar to
establish that his great epic, The Divine Comedy, exerted a
profound influence on the Chapel's iconographic program.
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