bernini and david and goliath and dante and baptistery

When my friend Virginia and I were walking through the streets of Assisi, we stopped in at an art gallery to see what works the proprietor had to offer. After exchanging pleasantries and poring over his work, he confessed to us that he likes the tourists and indeed makes his living off most of them, but that the nature of tourist life leads to ludicrously small understanding of what they are viewing. As he described it, the busses arrive, people are disgorged from the busses, they have twenty seconds to look at each of a few frescoes or paintings, paintings that took years to prepare, and then they are off to something else. They move faster than a whirlwind. How can learning take place when this is the speed at which those in tour groups must move?

Perhaps the modern tourist bus is a metaphor for our lives. Rather than stopping and savoring a phenomenon, rather than seeking to internalize knowledge about something, rather than letting a great work of art or literature "sink in" on us, we dash through the sacred buildings, sometimes taking pictures and sometimes picking up guide books, before proudly announcing to friends that we have "seen" X painting or Y sculpture, when we really have not understood it at all.

Each of us naturally seeks the level of understanding which accords with our personality and degree of desire. All of us, to one degree or another, are "shallow" learners; all of us would get the intellectual "bends" if we go too deeply into something and then try to come to the surface too quickly. So, the key to living comfortably with yourself is to discover the level at which you want to learn about things.

When you go to Italy, the context in which the learning comes is generally historical, theological, biblical, artistic. You may think you enter into Italy as a "big" person, but you leave realizing how comparatively little you are. You see works from classical times, from Medieval days, from the Renaissance, from the early modern period, and you know that these works ought not to be appreciated without understanding the maker, the times in which he lived, and the traditions in which he stood as he created his work. Thus, in order to understand Rome and Florence well you have to be an extremely good listener. And, it helps if you are familiar with the sacred texts, the classical allusions and some of the literary works which underpin the art and and history which are before you. In this essay I will give an example of why a knowledge of classic/sacred sources enriches our understanding of the art or architecture of Italy.

The Baptistery--and Dante

I devoted this essay to a description of the Baptistery. What I have discovered, however, is that one of the greatest Italian writers, Dante (1260-1325), also has something interesting to say about the Baptistery in his Inferno. He is walking along the third pouch of Malebolge with Virgil his guide (Canto XIX). Here dwell the simoniacs, the men who rapaciously enriched themselves at the expense of the faithful. They will be plunged face first into the earth, with only their feet and legs exposed to the burning fires of hell. They are "rapacious wolves" who befouled the things of God for money. Then, listen to his description of them:

"I saw that on both walls and on the ground
the livid iron stone was full of holes,
all of a size, and every one was round." (19.13-15).

But then, like Homer of old, he gives a metaphor or analogy for the reader to understand what kind of holes he has in mind. Instead of drawing upon the world of nature, however, Dante draws upon his experience of being in the Florence Baptistery.

"No bigger, and no narrower they appeared
than the holes in my lovely baptistery
of San Giovanni, made for holy fonts,
One of which, and not many years ago,
I had to break to save a boy from drowning--
and let men take that for the stamp of truth" (16-21).

What a remarkable passage this is. Purporting to describe Hell, Dante draws on a building which is supposed to bring a person to the gates of heaven (through baptism). Purporting to describe the torments suffered by the simoniacs, Dante is really writing a brief on behalf of himself. Maybe on one occasion, as most commentators speculate, he had broken one of the baptismal "holes" (possibly a sort of collar or device into which the baptizand was placed) and was roundly criticized by his opponents for doing so (we know that Dante was exiled, along with his political friends, around 1302). Here Dante tries to justify himself. He broke one of the "holes" in the baptistery indeed, but it was to save someone from drowning--perhaps an infant who was not attended by a sponsor or parent. Thus, in the midst of condemning the simoniacs (and one of the Orsini Popes is the ringleader of the simoniacs), he tries to rehabilitate himself. And, he does it all by making reference to his "lovely" baptistery. Never again will I look on the baptistery without thinking how largely it bulked in the imagination of Dante.

One Biblical Story

It is also helpful to have a detailed understanding of the Bible. For example, when our group was touring the Borghese Museum in Rome, we came upon three of the most famous of Bernini's 17th century sculptural masterpieces: David and Goliath; Apollo and Daphne; The Rape of Persephone. The guide was pointing out the David statute--as David was just about ready to let fly one of the five smooth stones which would kill Goliath. But there was something scaly around David's body, which looked like armor or the skin of an animal. What was that, someone asked, and why was David wearing it? The guide wasn't sure. But immediately it became clear to me because, when I was an eager Evangelical I mastered most of the Scriptures pretty closely. The story in I Sam. 17 runs that when David wanted to take on Goliath, several people tried to discourage him. But when they saw that their opposition was fruitless, King Saul gave David his armor to protect him. But David found the armor didn't fit him, and thus removed it in order to gather up the stones to fling against Goliath. Thus, Bernini captures the David who is divesting himself of the garments provided him by Saul in order to free himself from encumbrances as he goes into battle. Biblical knowledge enabled me to enjoy the full scope of Bernini's genius.

I don't share these stories to establish my classical/biblical competence. Rather, I do so to share the level at which I like to study the art I encountered--and to encourage you to go one step deeper in your appreciation of these works, some of which are the greatest of their type in our civilization.

1950