The “All Saints Days” column of May 20th. San Bernardino of Siena: history, mission in L’Aquila and art connected to devotion.
May 20th marks the memory of Saint Bernardino of Siena. San Bernardino, born Bernardino degli Albizzeschi, was born in Massa Marittima on 8 September 1380. Orphaned, he moved to Siena where he completed his education looked after by his aunts. During the plague that struck the city in 1400, Bernardino dedicated himself to caring for the sick, becoming himself infected by the disease. In this period, also inspired by the words of San Vincenzo Ferrer, he began to toy with the idea of joining the Franciscan Order, which he embraced in 1402. To complete his novitiate, he was sent to the southern slopes of Mount Amiata, to the convent known as the Colombaio , not far from the small village of Seggiano. The monastery followed the Rule of Observance, which arose within Franciscanism thirty-three years earlier: the friars observed absolute poverty and austerity, according to the Rule prescribed by Saint Francis, in contrast to the Conventuals, who were more relaxed in following the founder’s dictates of the Order. After his priestly ordination, San Bernardino was named preacher and returned to Siena. His oratory power was a stimulus to a profound renewal of the Catholic Church and the Franciscan movement.
During his sermons he emphasized devotion to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, ensuring that the IHS Christogram, made tangible through the use of painted tablets, became familiar to the devotees who flocked to listen to it until it entered common iconographic use. For further information on the topic:
All Holy Days, January 3: the Most Holy Name of Jesus
Critics recognize San Bernardino’s ability to carefully analyze the practical aspects of the life of the faithful. He was the first theologian to deal with economywriting an entire work On contracts and usury: in the text he harshly condemns loan sharking, addresses the issues of the justification of private property and the ethics of trade which, practiced lawfully, is not a source of damnation but a service to the community. Being rather explicit during his sermons earned him several enemies, especially in the circles of usurers and gambling houses, and cost him a trial for heresy, held in Rome in 1427, charges from which he was totally acquitted. He was offered the position of bishop several times, but Bernardino always refused to fully dedicate himself to his true vocation as a missionary. On May 17, 1444, despite already being very ill, at the invitation of Bishop Amico Agnifili, arrived in L’Aquila. He had preached Lent in Siena, from where, at the end of April, he set off towards Abruzzo, passing through Perugia, Assisi, Spoleto, Rieti, everywhere welcomed with great respect, devotion and veneration. Brothers and city magistrates, at each stage, urged him to stop, but he, determined to continue the journey, repeated: “In Aquila missus sum! Eamus Aquilam!”. It is likely that his call to L’Aquila was linked to some blood events that had occurred there: on Easter day, Marchionne, one of the leaders of the opposition to the Camponeschi, had been murdered in front of the altar of San Domenico; then, an Antonuccio di Marino; subsequently, two citizens in the church of Collemaggio. So, the city was wearing itself out fratricidal struggles, without hope of pacification. As soon as San Bernardino arrived in L’Aquila, one was lit dispute between the friars of San Francesco, intra moenia, and the Observants of San Giuliano who both claimed the privilege of hosting him: in the end, the Saint was welcomed into San Francesco and took up residence in the cell that Giovanni da Capestrano used to live in, during the brief stops of the his continuous wanderings. However, he survived only three days and on the eve of the Ascension of 1444, May 20, Brother Bernardino of Siena, placed naked on the bare ground, in the likeness of Saint Francis, breathed his last. For fifteen days the corpse remained exposed to the veneration of the faithful and the curious; it is said that the coffin continued to drip blood until the two opposing factions of L’Aquila had made peace. Solemn funerals were celebrated, with representatives arriving from Siena and other Italian cities and soon, above all thanks to the intervention of his brother from Capestrano, who was very close to him, the process of canonization was started, concluding with the nomination as Saint of part of Pope Nicholas V as early as 1450.
The body, immediately claimed by the hometown, is preserved in L’Aquila in the splendid mausoleum built between 1489 and 1505 by Sylvester from L’Aquila, in the basilica dedicated to him. As regards the artistic representations, San Bernardino is the first saint whose painted image resembles the historical figure: the death mask, preserved in L’Aquila, guarantees its accuracy and fidelity in the representation. Furthermore, the verisimilitude of the figure was also made possible by the fact that the Saint was represented by artists who were his contemporaries, testimony to the particular affection that gathered around his figure. With the passage of time and for different reasons – ranging from popular devotion to the political or Franciscan use of the image of the saint – we move away from the portrait and privilege, from time to time, various aspects of the representation, even very far from the physiognomic similarity. In the portrait, in addition to the rendering of the figure, the characteristic traits of his personality are highlighted, according to the words of Giovanni da Capestrano and Giacomo della Marca “[…] semper videbatur gaudens, quem omnesdesibant videre”, as well as a feeling of industriousness and notable tranquility of spirit. Alongside the depictions of the Saint, the dissemination, in the devotional context, of the Trigram tablet, in the dual round or rectangular version, became increasingly common. It is precisely its diffusion in the popular environment that constituted, since the mid-15th century, the fundamental premise for the affirmation of the figurative support of the image of San Bernardino. From the point of view iconographic, the first portraits of San Bernardino are characterized by a left three-quarter presentation, with the end of the nose reaching the contour line of the cheek, thin chin, spherical skull and a crown of white hair interrupted in the center of the forehead; his gaze, with respect to the axis of his face, turns to the left. In the second half of the 15th century, following the conclusion of the canonization process, Bernardino’s figurative presence had a strong popularization impulse, reaching its point of maximum diffusion: San Bernardino was compared to other saints on the basis of a function of protectionespecially from plagueor, in the Observant context, in the image of Saint Francis as the re-founder of the Order.
Finally, the representations of the sermons of San Bernardino in which the heartfelt participation of the faithful is depicted and which act as a visual testimony of what the Saint expressed in words: clarifying examples are the separation of men and women during sermons, or the moderation recommended in the luxury of clothes, made understandable to the faithful even through the pictorial image.
