ORCAGNA, ANDREA - Adoration of the Magi. Detail of the tabernacle by A. O. in the church of Orsanmichele - Florence.
Prayers (o.) are addressed to God, that is, to the Father, through the mediation of Christ (1 Pt. 4:11; 1 Clem. 61; Tertullian, Adv. Marcion., IV, 9). The Council of Hippo, in 393, specifies that «when one stands before the altar, prayer should always be directed to the Father». In the Roman liturgy, almost all the prayers from the classical period of the so-called Leonine, Gelasian, and Gregorian Sacramentaries (and originally also the prayers of Advent) are addressed to God the Father; whereas in the Gallican liturgy, prayers are often addressed to the Son, with the clause «Salvator mundi» preceding the conclusion. In the Roman Missal, Breviary, Pontifical, and Ritual, there are about 50 prayers addressed to the Son, and only one to the Holy Spirit (in the blessing of the abbot), but all of these are of medieval or modern origin, that is, later than the 16th century; while the Collect and Postcommunion of the Mass of the «Corpus Domini», from the 13th century, constitute the first exceptions. In the characteristic Roman conclusion «Per Dominum...», the two appositions «Filium tuum» and «Deus» were added later to emphasize the divinity of Christ.
In the literary form of the Collects, a simple type and a more complex type can be distinguished. The simpler type, which is also the more ancient, expresses the substantial object either with verbal forms such as Concede... Da nobis..., Exaudi..., Praesta..., or with a noun designating the grace requested, such as Auxilium..., Gratiam.... This type also occurs in the Secreta and Postcommunion prayers. Characteristic of the Secreta is the formula beginning with a word alluding to the offering of the gifts: Accepta..., Accipe..., Haec hostia..., Haec oblatio..., Haec sacrificia..., Munera.... Similarly, the Postcommunion prayers echo the phrasing of Communion: Haec communio..., Refecti..., Sacramenta..., Sumpta. The more complex type comprises four parts or subdivisions: a) an address to God, with attributes (omnipotens, sempiternus, Deus) or an entire predicative proposition (Deus qui abundantia pietatis tuae); b) an invocation (Concede..., Praesta..., Respice...), with the addition of quaesumus; c) a petition (ut...); d) the justification of the petition (Per Dominum...). This more complex type is proper to the Collects and never occurs in the Secreta or Postcommunion prayers. The invocation to God with the added predicative clause qui... is used especially
and Jacopo and numerous disciples and assistants. In any case, his name is insistently repeated for the fragment of a fresco with the Triumph of Death in Santa Croce, which some scholars instead attribute to his brother Nardo, a painter of broad capabilities and author of the frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella depicting Paradise.
The tabernacle of Orsanmichele, however, is a work of both architecture and sculpture, replete with tracery, carvings, reliefs, and inlays, completed by Orcagna in its main structure in 1359 but finished in the bronze balustrade with marble buildings, twisted columns, and angelic statues only a few years later (1366). Orcagna appears as a dominant personality in all three arts he practiced, and if not strictly a reactionary, he is certainly the one who most clearly and forcefully brought back mid-14th-century Florentine art in opposition to what in the masters of the generation following Giotto might have seemed like concessions to exotic tastes. This is evident, in addition to the "Strozzi Altarpiece," above all in the sculptures that adorn the tabernacle of Orsanmichele, where even the architectural lines of the full-pointed arch seem to enunciate a polemical stance against the joyous Sienese and Pisan styles that had invaded Florence around the middle of the century.