Iconographical Notes on the Passion

Abstract

The Communion. George of Nicomedia, writing, among other homilies, one on the text, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother…, says that because the mother of Jesus saw His passion drawing near she could not bear even for a short time to be separated from Him, that even when the Mysteries were celebrated she was not absent, though, as an example of high humility, not reclining at the table, yet in the chamber.1 She even, he continues, supervised the women preparing and attending at that paschal feast. Since he mentions the Mysteries twice, it is not surprising that in the little cell at S. Marco (no. 35) where Fra Angelico painted the Virgin kneeling with the Twelve, sharing the Communion of the Apostles, the specific subject should be the Institution of the Eucharist (Fig. 1). The pertinent passage in the canon of the mass begins, “Likewise after supper He took the cup.” In Fra Angelico's fresco the paschal meal is over, and the washing of the feet; this is the liturgical meal; chalice and paten are carried by Christ; and the Virgin kneels, a little forward on the left, while Christ passes on with the Host. Yet a century before when Pietro Lorenzetti painted the Last Supper at Assisi, and showed the kitchen with servants and scullions, cat and dog, and unwashed plates, neither the Virgin nor any other woman is introduced. The frescoes of the two adjacent cells at S. Marco are both remarkable:2 in no. 36, the Nailing to the Cross, three ladders are set up (instead of one), and this is not uncommon in the art of the Eastern Church; in no. 34, the Agony in the Garden, Christ is praying on the hillside, the three chosen apostles are drowsing outside the fence, and the two Holy Women sit just around the corner, sheltered by the loggia of a little house.