I had taken my mother on a trip to Florence to cheer her up after my father’s death. Since she had seen most of the important sites, we decided to concentrate on those that were not as popular and populated. This would mean the Palazzo Davanzati, the Bargello, the Brancacci Chapel, and the San Marco.
The Davanzati houses a museum on Florentine home life. Its star attraction is a Renaissance period toilet. For some reason, bathroom facilities from earlier historical periods always manage to draw crowds. The Bargello is the city’s sculpture museum. Among its most famous pieces are the statues of David which predate Michelangelo’s own celebrity creation. The Brancacci Chapel is in the Church of the Carmelites. Noteworthy here is Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve. A wonderful bonus is an animated film being shown in a small auditorium which brings to life the figures in the church’s murals.
After taking in the sights, we were so exhausted that we couldn’t resist a cool drink at a museum café. Since beverages are so expensive in tourist spots in Europe, I found myself asking if I could keep the gorgeous deep blue bottle. Happily, it now reposes in my banggerahan in Baclayon, Bohol, a world away from its genteel Florentine origins.
Of all the places that we had seen during this trip, what was certainly the most memorable was the Dominican church of San Marco. The thing not to miss is the second floor of the cloister. Here the monks’ quarters have been decorated with paintings by that most beatific of artists: Fra Angelico.
Negotiating the steps at a fast clip, I was not prepared for what awaited me at the head of the stairs. On the opposite wall was one of the acknowledged masterpieces of European art: Fra Angelico’s Annunciation. I could not help but pause and stare in silence. It is not often that one is in the presence of such perfection.
I am not sure if it was the way the light seemed to spread around the work, lingering to caress the face of the Virgin. Perhaps it was the subtle power of the many symbols employed: the soft round tondo at the apex of the fresco proclaiming the perfection of the Lord; the trees growing vigorously behind a fence alluding to the Paradise that humanity had lost with the fall of Adam and Eve. Perhaps it was the inscrutable meanings of an inner room lit only by the light from a single window. Was this an allegory of the soul, pierced by the Divine light? Then too, there was the lawn with its luxuriant carpet of flowers - a reference to Mary being the “enclosed garden” indicative of her supposed perpetual virginity.
One cell held a crucifixion with a witness dressed in the robes of the Dominicans. Another was festooned with a fresco depicting the Mocking of Christ. Surrounding the blindfolded Messiah are disembodied hands and heads. One of the heads is spitting at the Nazarene. It seems the painter wanted to do away with the cumbersome distractions of torsos and limbs, paring down the scene just to its essentials.
This urge to pare down is seen even in the colors. Surfaces are economically covered with washed out hues. Instead of royal blue and crimson there are lime greens and pinks. Evidently even vibrant tones can create further distractions. Since they titillated the eyes and drained the purse, there really was no place for them in a sanctuary for ascetic contemplation. The art historian Georges Didi-Huberman even suggests that Fra Angelico may have painted some walls to resemble marble not because he wanted to evoke luxury. What was being conveyed was that all this richness was really illusory and fleeting.
Interestingly, such a frugal environment had actually been home to a person who embodied the wealth and grandeur of the age. Beginning around 1437, no less than Cosimo of the fabulous Medici clan decided to commission artists like Michelozzo to expand and embellish San Marco. Cosimo had a room in the cloister reserved for himself and it was here that he would retire when he needed to rest from the affairs of Florence. Here he could pretend to be a monk devoted to nothing else but meditating on the sins of the Earth.
Sins were definitely not alien to Florence. As the capital of the Renaissance it had its fleshpots. Wealth could breed debauchery. It was from all this decadence that another of San Marco’s fabled occupants arose. The Dominican monk Savonarola would capture the imagination of the city with his bombastic sermons which predicted punishments if the Florentines did not repent. He was so convincing that he managed to urge the citizens to burn their luxuries, provocative works of art, and books in what came to be known as the Bonfire of the Vanities.
Today Savonarola’s cell is dominated by his portrait. His was surely the epitome of a face that was grim and determined. Unfortunately for the little monk, the citizenry could be fickle. There was a backlash against all this spectacular piety and the moralistic Dominican found himself in the midst of his own bonfire. The scene of his execution is commemorated in a painting that also hangs in his room at San Marco.
In the end though what really captured my imagination was a painting of the encounter between Mary Magdalene and Jesus on Easter Morning. We see that the setting is a beautiful garden just like the one in the Annunciation. This makes sense because Mary is after all the garden from which Christ derived. Yet, there is a difference: the large palm trees are now on our side of the fence. After all, Christians believe that with the Resurrection, Paradise had been regained. A closer look as suggested by Didi-Huberman will reveal that the flowers are speckled with blood. There are even drops in the shape of crosses, reminders that it was the Passion that made the Earth bloom again.
This moving scene had been the subject of many works of art through the centuries. I was reminded by the label outside the cell where the fresco was located, that this scene is universally referred to as the Noli Me Tangere. This Latin phrase which means “Do not cling to me” or “Do not touch me” are the words that Christ uttered as Mary Magdalene tried to embrace him. Imagine after having seen Jesus being tortured and then dying on the cross, Mary is asked not to give in to her instincts to wrap the Messiah in her arms! It must be this painful irony which inspired artists from Titian to Durer to portray this dramatic moment.
Of course, for Filipinos, Noli Me Tangere can only mean Jose Rizal’s immortal novel. Which is why, as I contemplated the beautiful painting in the silence of San Marco, a question inevitably formed in my mind: could our hero have been inspired by this very same fresco that I was beholding? Later on, I would learn that though he did visit Florence, this was after the Noli had already been completed. But there is still one last tantalizing clue. In a book about Rizal’s great friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt, Harry Sichrovsky notes that our hero was inspired by the Noli Me Tangere painting of Correggio in the Prado.
Was there a connection between the novel and the many art works whose title it shares? Can readings of the biblical passage be the basis for new interpretations of Rizal’s novels? These would be the subjects of future essays. In the meantime, I take comfort in the knowledge that even in the middle of the Renaissance glory of San Marco there is a delicate thread that goes all the way back to the heart of our nation.
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