Sight, Sound, and Silence at the Oratorio of San Bernardino in Clusone

Abstract

Recently, Chiara Frugoni has reiterated this lauda-fresco relationship, also briefly mentioning that the disciplini might have gathered in front of the Triumph of Death and Dance of Deathmural to read and recite “Io sono per nome chiamata morte.”8 Building on these observations, my contribution in this article is to specifically explore the performative ways in which the Bianchi could have interacted with the images on the façade of their oratory while reciting the lauda “Io sono per nome chiamata morte” aloud. My in-depth analysis of several passages from this vernacular poem confirms that the narrative in the fresco was modeled on the content of this text. I argue that, by incorporating and engaging with images that foreground the senses of sight and hearing, the iconography of the Clusone fresco becomes a multi-sensory meditation on “Io son per nome chiamata morte.” In particular, I posit that the conversation between Death and the disciplino, as conveyed in this lauda, is primarily envisioned in the representation of Mors triumphans standing on the uncovered sarcophagus at the top of the fresco. Death in triumph not only defiantly faces its onlookers—the Bianchi—by establishing eye contact with them but it also opens its jaw in a sign of speech. The words pronounced by Death, reported on two of the four scrolls at the top of the Clusone painting, correspond to those voiced by the personification of Death in “Io son per some chiamata morte.” I thus suggest that these verses inscribed in the fresco would have functioned as a memory prompt for each disciplino, who, in turn, would have recalled and recited aloud the other lines from the same lauda, thus activating a dialogue with Death.