BENEDICTINE ART
In the strict sense, the term designates—and is so used by a large part of modern criticism—a movement in art that had its center in southern and central Italy between the 9th and 12th centuries. On the other hand, the enormous religious, political, and social importance that the Benedictine Order, especially in the Middle Ages, exerted over so many and varied artistic manifestations, imprinted upon them a distinctive character, lending a particular accent to different figurative languages, which must also be noted in this regard.
From its very origins, by virtue of the moral and intellectual temperament of its founder and the personalities who soon gathered within its ranks, the Order appears as the most vigorous guardian of the still-living Roman cultural tradition, which, in the realm of the figurative arts, now equates to paleo-Christian art. The accession to the papacy of St. Gregory the Great, by tightening the bonds between the Order and the Roman See, strengthened and expanded its role—not only religious but also cultural—in missionary activity. The *Evangelia* or illuminated manuscript preserved in Cambridge, sent to England by Pope Gregory through the Benedictine monk Augustine, who would become Bishop of Canterbury, is a clear example of the perpetuation of paleo-Christian spirit and forms.
These early Romano-Benedictine missions infused (without denying limited contributions of Eastern culture from Syrian or Thebaid monasticism) a vein of paleo-Christian tradition into a terrain rich in other ancient traditions—Celtic culture—and stirred and drew forth other abundant sources, becoming intertwined in the great stream of Anglo-Saxon and Irish art. The question of which of these two had precedence (Masai) is now debated, but both were powerfully original, and both owed their origin and character—predominantly, if not exclusively—monastic, and more precisely Benedictine, to the rich and stupendous production of illuminated manuscripts and the related, though more modest, art of carved crosses.
As the *scriptoria* were largely monastic during the Carolingian period and later under the Ottonians, it was from Benedictine monasteries such as Metz, Tours, and St. Gall, among others, that the most distinguished illuminated codices emerged.
In southern Italy, around the mother abbey of Montecassino and the smaller ones that flourished around it, the work of scriptoria flourished, while churches were built and adorned with extensive cycles of frescoes, employing actual workshops of painters and illuminators dependent on the Order.
In the church of the mountain monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, a series of evangelical frescoes, datable to the 9th century, exhibit a vigorous and folksy vigor that constantly harks back to the same late-Roman source.
But it is especially in the time of the great abbot Desiderius (1058–86) and his works of renewal and embellishment of the monastery and church of Montecassino that the movement definable as "Benedictine art in the strict sense" can be traced.
Though the archives of Montecassino were destroyed, significant testimony remains in the form of illuminated codices on one hand and frescoes on the other. Among the latter, those of Sant’Angelo in Formis are of particular importance, along with a *Life of St. Benedict* in the Vatican, a *Regestum* of Sant’Angelo in Formis (Montecassino library), and numerous *Exultet* scrolls (cf.).
The value and originality of this art, especially in comparison with metropolitan Byzantine art, are debated. While Bertaux tends to emphasize its Byzantine character, Van Marle, recognizing the firm and continuous stylistic link between 9th- and 11th-century manifestations, inclines to judge it rather dependent on Carolingian and Ottonian art. Greater independence is acknowledged by Ladner and Lavagnino.
That Abbot Desiderius commissioned works of goldsmithing and carving in Constantinople and brought back masters of scriptoria and mosaic is attested by the well-known passages in the chronicle of Leo of Ostia. Yet all evidence suggests that this intervention of foreign elements was exercised far more in the technical than in the stylistic realm—acquisition of rare and precious objects, work and teaching by specialized masters in complex operations whose tradition had been lost, rather than by creative artists. And even if some artists (the *imaginarius* or beyond the "master") participated, their work was limited; their influence was scarce and short-lived, so that local pupils soon assumed an autonomous position. The imposing decoration of Sant’Angelo in Formis offers proof of this. For in it, which clearly reflects the vicissitudes of the Cassinese school at the time of the arrival of these Greeks, only a few sections—on the exterior of the façade beneath the portico and, in particular, the Angel and the Madonna on the door—display a pure and exquisite Byzantine accent, in refined decorative quality, heraldic rigidity, and abstract solemnity of forms. Meanwhile, through successive developments in taste and style, with various shifts in emotional tone revealing the succession of different masters—from the Stories of Hermits, still on the exterior, to the vast Last Judgment on the interior of the façade, and through the numerous biblical and evangelical scenes along the walls of the naves—one arrives at attitudes of robust, almost violent expressionism in the Redeemer of the apse, betraying links with Ottonian art.
Between these two extremes lies the bulk of these paintings, and in particular the series of "biblical and evangelical scenes," which possesses a character of its own: great representative and expressive efficacy in the compositions, liveliness of poses, simple and clear dramatic mimetic quality; an inspiration of fresh and abundant vein, a robust and sincere sentiment; a folksy touch but in no way plebeian, a swift painting in color patches on the white of the plaster with a preference for cold tones (blues, purples, amaranth reds, browns), within vigorous outlines and concise compositions. Moreover, the iconography itself departs from the Eastern model; for example, Christ Himself appears in the scene of the Last Judgment, in place of the empty throne of the *Hetoimasia*.
This artist, with his collaborators, is undoubtedly among the greatest of the Middle Ages. These same qualities, even when transposed into the reduced format of the manuscript, are evident in the finest Cassinese codices, particularly the *Life of St. Benedict*, and in some of the *Exultet* scrolls—though some of these (such as the one from Salerno, for the refinement of execution, or that from Bari for certain Greek inscriptions) show a somewhat greater Byzantine accentuation.
The inferior quality of some of these works should not be surprising when one considers that not all come from true scriptoria and workshops of illumination, but are copies made for ordinary use from the more esteemed exemplars, evidently to spare them. They cannot therefore be judged as works of art, but rather as manual productions by occasional draftsmen, untrained amateurs; and thus Bertaux’s judgment on the "barbarism" of the second Gaeta exemplar—a literal but rough copy by an inexperienced calligrapher lacking drawing skill—of another exemplar that is instead the work of an artist of notable personality and typical of this style, appears too severe.
That these varied and numerous manifestations of Benedictine art, of which southern Italy is so rich, possessed a distinctive and differentiated character seems obvious for historical reasons, since there is no doubt that Western Benedictine monasticism tended, if not to oppose, at least to distinguish itself from Eastern monasticism, which was also widespread, especially in Apulia and Calabria, among the so-called Basilians.
These, moreover, appear in close kinship—and this is obvious for historical reasons—with the painting that developed in Rome between the 9th and 12th centuries. Such as the earliest Ascension (datable between 817 and 855) and then the remarkable Stories of St. Clement and St. Alexis in the lower church of S. Clemente, dating before 1084, in which the peculiar character of the medieval Roman pictorial language, based predominantly on the decorative value of a thin, vibrant line, is manifested in exquisitely elegant ways, in a tone of courtly refinement, which can also be found, albeit to a lesser degree, in other fresco cycles, especially in S. Elia at Nepi, a work by Stefano, Giovanni, and Niccolò (as well as Farfa and Tuscania).
While still within this current but with a vein of more rugged sentiment, in almost dialectal attitudes, other Lazio fresco cycles with Genesis stories can be listed (S. Maria in Vescovo, S. Giovanni a Porta Latina in Rome) in parallel with the illustrations of certain atlantic Bibles (Tuscany).
Both Romans and Benedictines are responsible for the frescoes in the Benedictine church of S. Maria in Pallara on the Palatine, and the great and rare panel with the Last Judgment, recently acquired by the Vatican, signed by Giovanni and Niccolò, and datable, as Redig de Campos rightly asserts, to the end of the 11th century rather than the 13th as Paeseler would have II.
If this painting of central-southern Italy can properly be designated as a. b., then a large part of all artistic production in general in the period between the 9th century (and even earlier) and the 13th, before the rise of the new mendicant Orders, can be traced back to the multifaceted activity of the Benedictine Order, which, with its powerful and flourishing abbeys, covered all of civilized and civilizing Europe from Ripoll to Fulda, from Durham to Nonantola, from Durrow to Einsiedeln.
And it is especially Cluny that, with the prestige of its religiosity, the wisdom and firmness of its institutions, became a singularly lively and active center for the assimilation, elaboration, and propagation of artistic currents, and in particular of architectural types, during the periods corresponding to the three abbots: Berno (1100-127), Maiolo (1154-94), and Hugh (1049-1109), and the respective constructions of the abbey church—relatively modest that of Berno (the so-called Cluny I), larger that of Maiolo (II), and of exceptional splendor and grandeur that of Hugh (III). In this last, new architectural motifs are vigorously affirmed and clarified, motifs that had timidly appeared elsewhere: such as the plan with a metropolitan cross, with a double transept and double choir (to accommodate the large number of monks), and the ambulatory around the high altar, crowned by a series of small chapels or apsidal niches; while one of the very first appearances, if not perhaps the first, of the pointed arch in the load-bearing walls along the naves occurs here. Motifs that spread widely and, albeit more rarely, also in Italy, where the most notable examples of a deambulatory with apsidal niches of Cluniac type are the cathedral of Aversa, founded by the Norman dukes, and the abbey church of S. Antimo near Siena.
But it must be kept in mind that the ties between Cluny and Rome, and thus also with Montecassino, remained always strong and tenacious; as we see the Popes frequently visiting the abbey, with Urban II consecrating the altars of the choir in 1095, and Innocent II in 1130 the entire new church founded by Hugh and continued by Pons of Melgueil (1109-22) and completed by Peter the Venerable (1122-56).
Parallel to the growth of the central Cluniac abbey and other nearby ones in Burgundy and Languedoc, and always under the stimulus of the central Cluny, others arose that were rich in art and famous, such as La Daurade in Toulouse and, above all, through the work of Abbots Durand (1048-72) and Anquetil (1085-1115), that of Moissac.
And it must also be noted that among the greatest of these Benedictine promoters and builders must be counted William of Volpiano, a native of Lake Orta, founder of an abbey in Piedmont (Fruttuaria), a monk at Cluny under Abbot Maiolus, and founder of the church of S. Bénigne in Dijon; then called by the Norman king Richard II to found the abbey of Fécamp. William of Volpiano, who certainly introduced into Norman and Burgundian architecture results of experience, motifs of taste, and constructive and decorative elements of Lombard origin. Just as it is likely that Abbot Lanfranc, created Archbishop of Canterbury, brought Lombard customs and practices to England.
The series of splendid capitals already in the ambulatory (now in the Octave Museum) of Cluny, whose dating is disputed (Kingsley Porter: 1095; Michel: 1130-40; Aubert: 1109-1130 and 1113-18), find counterparts in the already Gothicizing taste and refined craftsmanship in examples from the Modena cathedral: not so much in the "biblical stories" of Wiligelmus on the façade, as in the capitals with foliate motifs at the top of the pilasters on the side. While on the one hand the tympanum with the Last Judgment of Conques (c. 1130-35) and on the other the Gospel Stories of Moissac seem to approach the art of Wiligelmus. And at Moissac, the sublime tympanum of the Last Judgment, like the other famous tympanum at Souillac, evokes strange, ill-defined, but certain and secure echoes of art from the distant East, with stylistic attitudes and particular iconographic details that recall India and China.
Among the paintings, the series of biblical stories on the vault of the nave, as well as other frescoes in the porch and apse of the abbey church of St-Savin-sur-Gartempe in Poitou, show great analogy in design and composition with S. Angelo in Formis, though differing in their palette tuned to warm ochre, red, and greenish tones, and in a certain more developed elegance. Greater is the affinity, even in iconographic theme, between S. Angelo in Formis and the group of frescoes of one of the churches of the "Dives Augia" on Lake Constance: S. Giorgio in Oberzell at Reichenau, as already recognized by Kraus.
The true Cluniac painting, of which the decoration of the church of Cluny is known only through old descriptions since it has been destroyed, can be directly derived in Berzé-la-Ville in Burgundy, which, according to Mercier and Focillon, would be closer to Byzantine modes than to the Romanesque ones of St-Savin and others, due to a greater technical refinement in the delicacy and continuity of the modeling, in the fullness and richness of color. But these frescoes of Berzé-la-Ville also have surprising affinities with certain ones in the crypt of Anagni (figures of Hippocrates and Galen, etc.).
A new wave of diffusion of a. b. in the broad sense came with the Cistercian reform, so effective in spreading, at the beginning of the 13th century, modes of an austere Gothic, almost to the point of nudity, but no less expressive and evocative for that. Its fundamental motifs,
(courtesy of Dr. B. Degenhart) Benedictine Art – Page from the Antiphonary copied by the monk Leo in 1072: Abbot Desiderius, Leo, and Giovanni, archpriest of the Church of Marsica – Montecassino, ms. 99.
BENEDICTINE ART – Ambulatory of the church of the abbey of S. Antimo (12th c.) – Castelnuovo dell’Abate near Montalcino (Siena).
According to the most widely held opinion, but recently challenged by Serafini, a long series of abbeys, each a daughter house of the previous one, would mark in Italy the spread of both the Cistercian Rule and the architecture exemplified by Cîteaux and Clairvaux: Fossanova, Casamari, Santa Maria di Arbon, San Galgano near Siena, and many others, including the numerous Chiaravalle abbeys named in honor of St Bernard. This influence was not confined to monastic churches, as we find monks of San Galgano at the head of the construction of Siena Cathedral, regarding which the original existence of a Cluniac-type ambulatory, derived from the example of Sant’Antimo and posited by Lusini and accepted by Salmi, has been refuted by more recent criticism (Carli).
Typical of the earliest Italian Cistercian church buildings is a three-aisled plan with a broad transept and square chapels terminating the transept arms.
The rapid rise of the mendicant orders marked the decline of the Cistercians, but, as has been noted, the new orders partly adopted the architectural style of the latter.
Recently, an attempt has been made to revive a new Benedictine artistic movement at Beuron Abbey (v.), whose monk-artists and decorators also worked extensively at Montecassino (Crypt) at the beginning of the century. Yet this style seems rather a deliberate compromise between a deliberately archaizing culture and a rather uncertain taste, such as was prevalent at the time, straddling the “floreale” and the pre-Raphaelite.