Honors Thesis Archive
| Author | Caitlin Green |
|---|---|
| Title | Giving Form to God: The Legacy of Savonarola in Paintings by Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael |
| Department | Art History |
| Advisor | Dr. Alejandra Gimenez-Berger, Dr. Amy Livingstone, Prof. Ed Charney |
| Year | 2015 |
| Honors | Departmental Honors |
| Full Text | View Thesis (2416 KB) |
| Abstract | The Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), a key figure during the Italian Renaissance, confronts and challenges an essential question: man’s relation to God. Evoking mental images of the supernatural works of Christ in his writings aids his audience in visualizing the sacred narrative, crossing the divide between man and the divine. The religious movement he led in Florence between 1494 and 1497 presents an enigma for scholars who seek to understand his effect on the arts. This paper examines the weight of scholasticism and humanism on Savonarola’s religious treatises and sermons. Although Savonarola’s reform seemed an artistic failure in his own time, his preaching resonated for artists such as Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517) and Raphael (1483-1520). Primary and secondary sources, including documents and images, reveal the influence of Savonarola’s teachings on art production. This influence propelled the two High Renaissance painters, Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael, to produce works that inspired devotional practices in accordance with Savonarola’s teachings. This paper reveals that these two High Renaissance artists carried out Savonarola’s mission; giving form in their paintings to invisible phenomena, as Savonarola had accomplished in his writings. |
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