The Frescoes in San Lorenzo al Lago in Fiastra and the Sermo Rusticus in the Painting of the Southern Marches

Abstract

The Church of San Lorenzo al Lago, in the village of Fiastra near Camerino, is decorated with an interesting cycle of paintings representing scenes from the Passion of Christ, the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence and a synthetic view of the Afterlife with the three Patriarchs with the souls in their bosoms; an inscriptionallows us to date the frescoes to the year 1275.The iconographic themes present remarkable peculiarities, linking scenes of the life of Christ with some scenes of the life of Saint Lawrence, the Saint who the church was entitled to, however more attractive is the formal manner showed by the mural. From a stylistic point of view it is possible to observe the extremely linear simplicity and a colour range limited to black, white, yellow and red. Until now these frescoes have been practically overlooked by art historical literature. This article presents these unknown paintings and shows how they constitute an important example of pictorial ‘sermo rusticus’ inthe Marches.The ‘sermo rusticus’, as Pietro Scarpellini called it, is a pictorial manner characterized by a high stylistic simplicity, and, up to now, it seemed that it was recognizable only in some frescoes in Perugia and its surroundings.The paintings of San Lorenzo al Lago, in fact, find the most evident stylistic affinities with the murals in the Perugia churches of San Bevignate, Santa Maria di Ancaelle and San Giovanni del Fosso, and, more important, they are the source of inspiration for the fragmentary wall paintings in the Ascoli Piceno churches of San Giacomo, representing Saints and a Nursing Madonna, and the Lamentation of Christ in San Vittore.Therefore, it is possible to affirm that the pictorial ‘sermo rusticus’ was not isolated in the Umbria region, but spread also in the Marches, reaching the Adriatic coast, and this allows us to have a wider comprehension of the variety of the pictorial manner present in a border region as the Marches were at the end of the 13th century.