The Lunette with St. Thomas Becket at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco: An Unexpected Presence?

Roberta Cerone

doi:10.3390/arts10030058

Abstract

The painting with St. Thomas Becket, St. Stephen and St. Nicholas of Bari that decorates one of the lunettes in the so-called lower church at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco is an enigma from an art-historical point of view, for two reasons. First, on an iconographical level, the lunette interrupts the flow of the story of Benedict’s life unfolding systematically on all the walls of the lower church. Second, from the formal point of view, the fresco clearly presents more archaic features than the surrounding Stories of St. Benedict, dating to the end of the thirteenth/beginning of the fourteenth century, and was therefore probably executed in a phase prior to the cycle of Benedict. In the paper, therefore, I will analyse the motivations that led to the preservation of this painting when the hall was renovated and later redecorated in the late thirteenth century, and discuss the hypotheses surrounding patronage. Both aspects will help to better contextualize the reasons for the presence of the image of St. Thomas Becket in a pre-eminent position in the sanctuary of Benedict in Subiaco, a papal bulwark on the borders of the Kingdom.

Highlights

At the beginning of the sixth century, St
Speco that took up Benedict of Norcia’s spiritual inheritance, thanks in part to the inspiring presence of Benedict’s cave, which was a constant reminder of the sacrifices required by regular life
The sources attribute to Iohannes V the first authorization to settle at the Sacro Speco, according to a small group of friars under the guidance of the monk Palumbo (Carucci and Morghen 1991, p. 167)

Summary

Introduction

At the beginning of the sixth century, St. Benedict of Norcia, fleeing Rome and worldly temptations, sought refuge in Subiaco in the Aniene valley, as Gregory the Great recounts in the second book of his Dialogues. Benedict’s presence encouraged the development of cenobitic life in the valley with a series of no less than thirteen monasteries founded directly by the saint (Pani Ermini 1981; Fiore Cavaliere 1994, pp. 13–24). According to the Chronicon, Umbertus built a “beautiful church and a covered crypt”, of which no trace remains today The sources attribute to Iohannes V the first authorization to settle at the Sacro Speco, according to a small group of friars under the guidance of the monk Palumbo The narrative of the sources attests that during the eleventh century a rocky devotional route had become consolidated, leading upwards to the series of altars in honour of the Virgin, of Silvester, of St. Romanus and to the veneration of the cave. The refoundation of the sanctuary in the thirteenth century erased the earlier traces and gave the sanctuary the appearance it still partially retains today

The Thirteenth-Century Refoundation

Photo: It

This cycle was executed by a highly diverse workshop